The 3rd of the 34th Artillery was a towed 105mm
howitzer battalion assigned to the 9th Infantry Division. The battalion was
unique in that is was placed on barge firing platforms to provide direct artillery support
for the divisions Mobile Riverine Force Operations. It was administratively stationed at
Dong Tam, arriving in Vietnam as direct support artillery for the divisions 3rd
brigade before its riverine role was undertaken.

The Vietnam War was the legacy of France's failure to suppress nationalist
forces in Indochina as it struggled to restore its colonial dominion after
World War II. Led by Ho Chi Minh, a Communist-dominated revolutionary movement—the
Viet Minh—waged a political and military struggle for Vietnamese independence
that frustrated the efforts of the French and resulted ultimately in their
ouster from the region.

The U.S. Army's first encounters with Ho Chi Minh were brief and sympathetic.
During World War II, Ho's anti-Japanese resistance fighters helped to rescue
downed American pilots and furnished information on Japanese forces in
Indochina. U.S. Army officers stood at Ho's side in August 1945 as he basked
in the short-lived satisfaction of declaring Vietnam's independence. Five
years later, however, in an international climate tense with ideological
and military confrontation between Communist and non-Communist powers,
Army advisers of the newly formed U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group
(MAAG), Indochina, were aiding France against the Viet Minh. With combat
raging in Korea and mainland China recently fallen to the Communists, the
war in Indochina now appeared to Americans as one more pressure point to
be contained on a wide arc of Communist expansion in Asia. By underwriting
French military efforts in Southeast Asia, the United States enabled France
to sustain its economic recovery and to contribute, through the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO), to the collective defense of western Europe.

Provided with aircraft, artillery, tanks, vehicles, weapons, and other
equipment and supplies a small portion of which they distributed to an
anti-Communist Vietnamese army they had organized—the French did not fail
for want of equipment. Instead, they put American aid at the service of
a flawed strategy that sought to defeat the elusive Viet Minh in set-piece
battles, but neglected tocultivate the loyalty and support of the
Vietnamese people. Too few in number to provide more than a veneer of security
in most rural areas, the French were unable to suppress the guerrillas
or to prevent the underground Communist shadow government from reappearing
whenever French forces left one area to fight elsewhere.

The battle of Dien Bien Phu epitomized the shortcomings of French strategy.
Located near the Laotian border in a rugged valley of remote northwestern

620

Vietnam, Dien Bien Phu was not a congenial place to fight. Far inland
from coastal supply bases and with roads vulnerable to the Viet Minh, the
base depended almost entirely on air support. The French, expecting the
Viet Minh to invade Laos, occupied Dien Bien Phu in November 1953 in order
to force a battle. Yet they had little to gain from an engagement. Victory
at Dien Bien Phu would not have ended the war; even if defeated, the Viet
Minh would have retired to their mountain redoubts. And no French victory
at Dien Bien Phu would have reduced Communist control over large segments
of the population. On the other hand, the French had much to lose, in manpower,
equipment, and prestige.

Their position was in a valley, surrounded by high ground that the Viet
Minh quickly fortified. While bombarding the besieged garrison with artillery
and mortars, the attackers tunneled closer to the French positions. Supply
aircraft that successfully ran the gauntlet of intense antiaircraft fire
risked destruction on the ground from Viet Minh artillery. Eventually,
supplies and ammunition could be delivered to the defenders only by parachute
drop. As the situation became critical, France asked the United States
to intervene. Believing that the French position was untenable and that
even massive American air attacks using small nuclear bombs would be futile,
General Matthew B. Ridgway, the Army Chief of Staff, helped to convince
President Dwight D. Eisenhower not to aid them. Ridgway also opposed the
use of U.S. ground forces, arguing that such an effort would severely strain
the Army and possibly lead to a wider war in Asia.

The fall of Dien Bien Phu on 7 May 1954, as peace negotiations were
about to start in Geneva, hastened France's disengagement from Indochina.
On 20 July, France and the Viet Minh agreed to end hostilities and to divide
Vietnam temporarily into two zones at the 17th parallel. In
the North, the Viet Minh established a Communist government, with its capital
at Hanoi. French forces withdrew to the South, and hundreds of thousands
of civilians, most of whom were Roman Catholics, accompanied them. The
question of unification was left to be decided by an election scheduled
for 1956.

The Emergence of South Vietnam

As the Viet Minh consolidated control in the North, Ngo Dinh Diem, a
Roman Catholic of mandarin background, sought to assert his authority over
the chaotic conditions in the South in hopes of establishing an anti-Communist
state. A onetime minister in the French colonial administration, Diem enjoyed
a reputation for honesty. He had resigned his office in 1933 and had taken
no part in the tumultuous events that swept over Vietnam after the

622

war. Diem returned to Saigon in the summer of 1954 as premier with no
political following except his family and a few Americans. His authority
was challenged, first by the independent Hoa Hao and Cao Dai religious
sects and then by the Binh Xuyen, an organization of gangsters that controlled
Saigon's gambling dens and brothels and had strong influence with the police.
Rallying an army, Diem defeated the sects and gained their grudging allegiance.
Remnants of their forces, however, fled to the jungle to continue their
resistance, and some, at a later date, became the nucleus of Communist
guerrilla units.

Diem was also challenged by members of his own army, where French influence
persisted among the highest ranking officers. But he weathered the threat
of an army coup, dispelling American doubts about his ability to survive
in the jungle of Vietnamese politics. For the next few years, the United
States commitment to defend South Vietnam's independence was synonymous
with support for Diem. Americans now provided advice and support to the
Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN); at Diem's request, they replaced
French advisers throughout his nation's military establishment.

As the American role in South Vietnam was growing, U.S. defense policy
was undergoing review. Officials in the Eisenhower administration believed
that wars like those in Korea and Vietnam were too costly and ought to
be avoided in the future. "Never again" was the rallying cry of those who
opposed sending U.S. ground forces to fight a conventional war in Asia.
Instead, the Eisenhower administration relied on the threat or use of massive
nuclear retaliation to deter or, if necessary, to defeat the armies of
the Soviet Union or Communist China. The New Look, as this policy was called,
emphasized nuclear air power at the expense of conventional ground forces.
If deterrence failed, planners envisioned the next war as a short, violent
nuclear conflict of a few days' duration, conducted with forces in being.
Ground forces were relegated to a minor role, and mobilization was regarded
as an unnecessary luxury. In consequence, the Army's share of the defense
budget decreased, the modernization of its forces was delayed, and its
strength was reduced by 40 percent—from 1,404,598 in 1954 to 861,964 in
1956.

A strategy dependent on one form of military power, the New Look was
sharply criticized by soldiers and academics alike. Unless the United States
was willing to risk destruction, critics argued, the threat of massive
nuclear retaliation had little credibility. General Ridgway and his successor,
General Maxwell D. Taylor, were vocal opponents. Both advocated balanced
forces to enable the United States to cope realistically with a variety
of military contingencies. The events of the late 1950's appeared to support
their demand

623

for flexibility. The United States intervened in Lebanon in 1956 to
restore political stability there. Two years later an American military
show of force in the Straits of Taiwan helped to dampen tensions between
Communist China and the Nationalist Chinese Government on Formosa. Both
contingencies underlined the importance of avoiding any fixed concept of
war.

Advocates of the flexible response doctrine foresaw a meaningful role
for the Army as part of a more credible deterrent and as a means of intervening,
when necessary, in limited and small wars. They wished to strengthen both
conventional and unconventional forces; to improve strategic and tactical
mobility; and to maintain troops and equipment at forward bases, close
to likely areas of conflict. They placed a premium on highly responsive
command and control, to allow a close meshing of military actions with
political goals. The same reformers were deeply interested in the conduct
of brushfire wars, especially among the underdeveloped nations. In the
so-called third world, competing cold war ideologies and festering nationalistic,
religious, and social conflicts interacted with the disruptive forces of
modernization to create the preconditions for open hostilities. Southeast
Asia was one of several such areas identified by the Army. Here the United
States' central concern was the threat of North Vietnamese and perhaps
Chinese aggression against South Vietnam and other non-Communist states.

The United States took the lead in forming a regional defense pact,
the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), signaling its commitment
to contain Communist encroachment in the region. Meanwhile the 342 American
advisers of MAAG, Vietnam (which replaced MAAG, Indochina, in 1955), trained
and organized Diem's fledgling army to resist an invasion from the North.
Three MAAG chiefs—Lt. Gens. John W. O'Daniel, Samuel T. Williams, and Lionel
C. McGarr—reorganized South Vietnam's light mobile infantry groups into
infantry divisions, compatible in design and mission with U.S. defense
plans. The South Vietnamese Army, with a strength of about 150,000, was
equipped with standard Army equipment and given the mission of delaying
the advance of any invasion force until the arrival of American reinforcements.
The residual influence of the army's earlier French training, however,
lingered in both leadership and tactics. The South Vietnamese had little
or no practical experience in administration and the higher staff functions,
from which the French had excluded them.

The MAAG's training and reorganization work was often interrupted by
Diem's use of his army to conduct "pacification" campaigns to root out
stay-behind Viet Minh cadre. Hence responsibility for most internal security
was transferred to poorly trained and ill-equipped paramilitary forces,
the Civil Guard and Self-Defense Corps, which numbered about 75,000. For
the

624

most part, the Viet Minh in the South avoided armed action and subscribed
to a political action program in anticipation of Vietnam-wide elections
in 1956, as stipulated by the Geneva Accords. But Diem, supported by the
United States, refused to hold elections, claiming that undemocratic conditions
in the North precluded a fair contest. (Some observers thought Ho Chi Minh
sufficiently popular in the South to defeat Diem.) Buoyed by his own election
as President in 1955 and by the adulation of his American supporters, Diem's
political strength rose to its apex. While making some political and economic
reforms, he pressed hard his attacks on political opponents and former
Viet Minh, many of whom were not Communists at all but patriots who had
joined the movement to fight for Vietnamese independence.

By 1957 Diem's harsh measures had so weakened the Viet Minh that Communist
leaders in the South feared for the movement's survival there. The southerners
urged their colleagues in the North to sanction a new armed struggle in
South Vietnam. For self-protection, some Viet Minh had fled to secret bases
to hide and form small units. Others joined renegade elements of the former
sect armies. From bases in the mangrove swamps of the Mekong Delta, in
the Plain of Reeds near the Cambodian border, and in the jungle of War
Zones C and D northwest of Saigon, the Communists began to rebuild their
armed forces, to re-establish an underground political network, and to
carry out propaganda, harassment, and terrorist activities. As reforms
faltered and Diem became more dictatorial, the ranks of the rebels swelled
with the politically disaffected.

The Rise of the Viet Cong

The insurgents, now called the Viet Cong, had organized several companies
and a few battalions by 1959, the majority in the Delta and the provinces
around Saigon. As Viet Cong military strength increased, attacks against
the paramilitary forces, and occasionally against the South Vietnamese
Army, became more frequent. Many were conducted to obtain equipment, arms,
and ammunition, but all were hailed by the guerrillas as evidence of the
government's inability to protect its citizens. Political agitation and
military activity also quickened in the Central Highlands, where Viet Cong
agents recruited among the Montagnard tribes. In 1959, after

assessing conditions in the South, the leaders in Hanoi agreed to resume
the armed struggle, giving it equal weight with political efforts to undermine
Diem and reunify Vietnam. To attract the growing number of anti-Communists
opposed to Diem, as well as to provide a democratic facade for administering
the party's policies in areas controlled by the Viet Cong, Hanoi

625

in December 1960 created the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam.
The revival of guerrilla warfare in the South found the advisory group,
the South Vietnamese Army, and Diem's government ill prepared to wage an
effective campaign. In their efforts to train and strengthen Diem's army,
U.S. advisers had concentrated on meeting the threat of a conventional
North Vietnamese invasion. The ARVN's earlier antiguerrilla campaigns,
while seemingly successful, had been carried out against a weak and dormant
insurgency. The Civil Guard and Self-Defense Corps, which bore the brunt
of the Viet Cong's attacks, were not under the MAAG's purview and proved
unable to cope with the audacious Viet Cong. Diem's regime, while stressing
military activities, neglected political, social, and economic reforms.
American officials disagreed over the seriousness of the guerrilla threat,
the priority to be accorded political or military measures, and the need
for special counterguerrilla training for the South Vietnamese Army. Only
a handful of the MAAG's advisers had personal experience in counterinsurgency
warfare.

Yet the U.S. Army was not a stranger to such conflict. Americans had
fought insurgents in the Philippines at the turn of the century, conducted
a guerrilla campaign in Burma during World War II, helped the Greek and
Philippine Governments to subdue Communist insurgencies after the war,
and studied the French failure in Indochina and the British success in
Malaya. The Army did not, however, have a comprehensive doctrine for dealing
with insurgency. For the most part, insurgent warfare was equated with
the type of guerrilla or partisan struggles carried out during World War
II behind enemy lines in support of conventional operations. This viewpoint
reduced antiguerrilla warfare to providing security against enemy partisans
operating behind friendly lines.

Almost totally lacking was an appreciation of the political and social
dimensions of insurgency and its role in the larger framework of revolutionary
war. Insurgency meant above all a contest for political legitimacy and
power—a struggle between contending political cultures over the organization
of society. Most of the Army advisers and Special Forces who were sent
to South Vietnam in the early 1960'S were poorly prepared to wage such
a struggle. A victory for counterinsurgency in South Vietnam would require
Diem's government not only to outfight the guerrillas, but to compete successfully
with their efforts to organize the population in support of the government's
cause.

The Viet Cong thrived on their access to and control of the people,
who formed the most important part of their support base. The population
provided both economic and manpower resources to sustain and expand the
insurgency; the people of the villages served the guerrillas as their first
line of

626

resistance against government intrusion into their "liberated zones"
and bases. By comparison with their political effort, the strictly military
aims of the Viet Cong were secondary. The insurgents hoped not to destroy
government forces—although they did so when weaker elements could be isolated
and defeated—but by limited actions to extend their influence over the
population. By mobilizing the population, the Viet Cong compensated for
their numerical and material disadvantages. The rule of thumb that ten
soldiers were needed to defeat one guerrilla reflected the insurgents"
political support rather than their military superiority. For the Saigon
government, the task of isolating the Viet Cong from the population was
difficult under any circumstances and impossible to achieve by force alone.

Viet Cong military forces varied from hamlet and village guerrillas,
who were farmers by day and fighters by night, to full-time professional
soldiers. Organized into squads and platoons, part-time guerrillas had
several military functions. They gathered intelligence, passing it on to
district or provincial authorities; they proselytized, propagandized, recruited,
and provided security for local cadres. They reconnoitered the battlefield,
served as porters and guides, created diversions, evacuated wounded, and
retrieved weapons. Their very presence and watchfulness in a hamlet or
village inhibited the population from aiding the government.

By contrast, the local and main force units consisted of full-time soldiers,most often recruited from the area where the unit operated. Forming
companies and battalions, local forces were attached to a village, district,
or provincial headquarters. Often they formed the protective shield behind
which a Communist Party cadre established its political infrastructure
and organized new guerrilla elements at the hamlet and village levels.
As the link between guerrilla and main force units, local forces served
as a reaction force for the former and as a pool of replacements and reinforcements
for the latter. Having limited offensive capability, local forces usually
attacked poorly defended, isolated outposts or weaker paramilitary forces,
often at night and by ambush. Main force units were organized as battalions,
regiments, and—as the insurgency matured—divisions. Subordinate to provincial,
regional, and higher commands, such units were the strongest, most mobile,
and most offensive-minded of the Viet Cong forces; their mission often
was to attack and defeat a specific South Vietnamese unit.

Missions were assigned and approved by a political officer who, in most
cases, was superior to the unit's military commander. Party policy, military
discipline, and unit cohesion were inculcated and reinforced by three-man
party cells in every unit. Among the insurgents, war was always the servant
of policy.

627

As the Viet Cong's control over the population increased, their military
forces grew in number and size. Squads and platoons became companies, companies
formed battalions, and battalions were organized into regiments. This process
of creating and enlarging units continued as long as the Viet Cong had
a base of support among the population. After 1959, however, infiltrators
from the North also became important. Hanoi activated a special military
transportation unit to control overland infiltration along the Ho Chi Minh
Trail through Laos and Cambodia. Then a special naval unit was set up to
conduct sea infiltration. At first, the infiltrators were southern-born
Viet Minh soldiers who had regrouped north after the French Indochina War.
Each year until 1964, thousands returned south to join or to form Viet
Cong units, usually in the areas where they had originated. Such men served
as experienced military or political cadres, as technicians, or as rank-and-file
combatants wherever local recruitment was difficult.

When the pool of about 80,000 so-called regroupees ran dry, Hanoi began
sending native North Vietnamese soldiers as individual replacements and
reinforcements. In 1964 the Communists started to introduce entire North
Vietnamese Army (NVA) units into the South. Among the infiltrators were
senior cadres, who manned the expanding Viet Cong command system— regional
headquarters, interprovincial commands, and the Central Office for South
Vietnam (COSVN), the supreme military and political headquarters. As the
southern branch of the Vietnamese Communist Party, COSVN was directly subordinate
to the Central Committee in Hanoi. Its senior commanders were high-ranking
officers of North Vietnam's Army. To equip the growing number of Viet Cong
forces in the South, the insurgents continued to rely heavily on arms and
supplies captured from South Vietnamese forces. But, increasingly, large
numbers of weapons, ammunition, and other equipment arrived from the North,
nearly all supplied by the Sino-Soviet bloc.

From a strength of approximately 5,000 at the start of 1959, the Viet
Cong's ranks grew to about 100,000 at the end of 1964. The number of infiltrators
alone during that period was estimated at 41,000. The growth of the insurgency
reflected not only North Vietnam's skill in infiltrating men and weapons,
but South Vietnam's inability to control its porous borders, Diem's failure
to develop a credible pacification program to reduce Viet Cong influence
in the countryside, and the South Vietnamese Army's difficulties in reducing
long-standing Viet Cong bases and secret zones. Such areas not only facilitated
infiltration, but were staging areas for operations; they contained training
camps, hospitals, depots, workshops, and command centers. Many bases were
in remote areas seldom visited by the army, such as the U Minh Forest or
the Plain of Reeds. But others existed in the heart of populated

628

areas, in the "liberated zones." There Viet Cong forces, dispersed among
hamlets and villages, drew support from the local economy. From such centers
the Viet Cong expanded their influence into adjacent areas that were nominally
under Saigon's control.

A New President Takes Charge

Soon after John F. Kennedy became President in 1961, he sharply increased
military and economic aid to South Vietnam to help Diem defeat the growing
insurgency. For Kennedy, insurgencies (or "wars of national liberation"
in the parlance of Communist leaders) were a challenge to international
security every bit as serious as nuclear war. The administration's approach
to both extremes of conflict rested on the precepts of the flexible response.
Regarded as a form of "sub-limited" or small war, insurgency was treated
largely as a military problem—conventional war writ small—and hence susceptible
to resolution by timely and appropriate military action. Kennedy's success
in applying calculated military pressures to compel the Soviet Union to
remove its offensive missiles from Cuba in 1962 reinforced the administration's
disposition to deal with other international crises, including the conflict
in Vietnam, in a similar manner.

Though an advance over the New Look, his policy also had limitations.
Long-term strategic planning tended to be sacrificed to short-term crisis
management. Planners were all too apt to assume that all belligerents were
rational and that the foe subscribed as they did to the seductive logic
of the flexible response. Hoping to give the South Vietnamese a margin
for success Kennedy periodically authorized additional military aid and
support between I96I and November 1963, when he was assassinated. But potential
benefits were nullified by the absence of a clear doctrine and a coherent
operational strategy for the conduct of counterinsurgency, and by chronic
military and political shortcomings on the part of the South Vietnamese.

The U.S. Army played a major role in Kennedy's "beef up" of the American
advisory and support efforts in South Vietnam. In turn, that role was made
possible in large measure by Kennedy's determination to increase the strength
and capabilities of Army forces for both conventional and unconventional
operations. Between 1961 and 1964 the Army's strength rose from about 850,000
to nearly a million men, and the number of combat divisions grew from eleven
to sixteen. These increases were backed up by an ambitious program to modernize
Army equipment and, by stockpiling supplies and equipment at forward bases,
to increase the deployability and readiness of Army combat forces. The
build-up, however, did not prevent the

629

call-up of 120,000 Reservists to active duty in the summer of 1961,
a few months after Kennedy assumed office. Facing renewed Soviet threats
to force the Western Powers out of Berlin, Kennedy mobilized the Army to
reinforce NATO, if need be. But the mobilization revealed serious shortcomings
in Reserve readiness and produced a swell of criticism and complaints from
Congress and Reservists alike. Although Kennedy sought to remedy the deficiencies
that were exposed and set in motion plans to reorganize the Reserves, the
unhappy experience of the Berlin Crisis was fresh in the minds of national
leaders when they faced the prospect of war in Vietnam a few years later.

Facing trouble spots in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia, Kennedy
took a keen interest in the U.S. Army's Special Forces, believing that
their skills in unconventional warfare were well suited to countering insurgency.
During his first year in office, he increased the strength of the Special
Forces from about 1,500 to 9,000 and authorized them to wear a distinctive
green beret. In the same year he greatly enlarged their role in South Vietnam.
First under the auspices of the Central Intelligence Agency and then under
a military commander, the Special Forces organized the highland tribes
into the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) and in time sought to
recruit other ethnic groups and sects in the South as well. To this scheme,
underwritten almost entirely by the United States, Diem gave only tepid
support. Indeed, the civilian irregulars drew strength from groups traditionally
hostile to Saigon. Treated with disdain by the lowland Vietnamese, the
Montagnards developed close, trusting relations with their Army advisers.
Special Forces detachment commanders frequently were the real leaders of
CIDG units. This strong mutual bond of loyalty between adviser and highlander
benefited operations, but some tribal leaders sought to exploit the special
relationship to advance Montagnard political autonomy. On occasion, Special
Forces advisers found themselves in the awkward position of mediating between
militant Montagnards and South Vietnamese officials who were suspicious
and wary of the Americans' sympathy for the highlanders.

Through a village self-defense and development program, the Special
Forces aimed initially to create a military and political buffer to the
growing Viet Cong influence in the Central Highlands. Within a few years,
approximately 60,000 highlanders had enlisted in the CIDG program. As their
participation increased, so too did the range of Special Forces activities.
In addition to village defense programs, the Green Berets sponsored offensive
guerrilla activities and border surveillance and control measures. To detect
and impede the Viet Cong, camps were established astride infiltration corri-

630

dors and near enemy base areas, especially along the Cambodian and Laotian
borders. But the camps themselves were vulnerable to enemy attack and,
despite their presence, infiltration continued. At times, border control
diverted tribal units from village defense, the original heart of the CIDG
program.

By 1965, as the military situation in the highlands worsened, many CIDG
units had changed their character and begun to engage in quasi-conventional
military operations. In some instances, irregulars under the leadership
of Army Special Forces stood up to crack enemy regiments, offering much
of the military resistance to enemy efforts to dominate the highlands.
Yet the Special Forces—despite their efforts in South Vietnam and in Laos,
where their teams helped to train and advise anti-Communist Laotian forces
in the early 1960'S—did not provide an antidote to the virulent insurgency
in Vietnam. Long-standing animosities between Montagnard and Vietnamese
prevented close, continuing co-operation between the South Vietnamese Army
and the irregulars. Long on promises but short on action to improve the
lot of the Montagnards, successive South Vietnamese regimes failed to win
the loyalty of the tribesmen. And the Special Forces usually operated in
areas that were remote from the main Viet Cong threat to the heavily populated
and economically important Delta and coastal regions of the country.

Besides the Special Forces, the Army's most important contribution to
the fight was the helicopter. Neither Kennedy nor the Army anticipated
the rapid growth of aviation in South Vietnam when the first helicopter
transportation company arrived in December 1961. Within three years, however,
each of South Vietnam's divisions and corps was supported by Army helicopters,
with the faster, more reliable and versatile UH-1 (Huey) replacing the
older CH-21. In addition to transporting men and supplies, helicopters
were used to reconnoiter, to evacuate wounded, and to provide command and
control. The Vietnam conflict became the crucible in which Army airmobile
and air assault tactics evolved. As armament was added—first machine gun-wielding
door-gunners, and later rockets and mini-guns—armed helicopters began to
protect troop carriers against antiaircraft fire, to suppress enemy fire
around landing zones during air assaults, and to deliver fire support to
troops on the ground.

Army fixed-wing aircraft also flourished. Equipped with a variety of
detection devices, the OV-1 Mohawk conducted day and night surveillance
of Viet Cong bases and trails. The Caribou, with its sturdy frame and ability
to land and take off on short, unimproved airfields, proved ideal to supply
remote camps.

Army aviation revived old disagreements with the Air Force over the
roles and missions of the two services and the adequacy of Air Force close
air

631

support. The expansion of the Army's own "air force" nevertheless continued,
abetted by the Kennedy administration's interest in extending airmobility
to all types of land warfare, from counterinsurgency to the nuclear battlefield.
Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara himself encouraged the Army to
test an experimental air assault division. During 1963 and 1964 the Army
demonstrated that helicopters could successfully replace ground vehicles
for mobility and provide fire support in lieu of ground artillery. The
result was the creation in 1965 of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)—the
first such unit in the Army. In South Vietnam the helicopter's effect on
organization and operations was as sweeping as the influence of mechanized
forces in World War II. Many of the operational concepts of airmobility,
rooted in cavalry doctrine and operations, were pioneered by helicopter
units between 1961 and 1964, and later adopted by the new airmobile division
and by all Army combat units that fought in South Vietnam.

In addition to Army Special Forces and helicopters, Kennedy greatly
expanded the entire American advisory effort. Advisers were placed at the
sector (provincial) level and were permanently assigned to infantry battalions
and certain lower echelon combat units; additional intelligence advisers
were

632

sent to South Vietnam. Wide use was made of temporary training teams
in psychological warfare, civic action, engineering, and a variety of logistical
functions. With the expansion of the advisory and support efforts came
demands for better communications, intelligence, and medical, logistical,
and administrative support, all of which the Army provided from its active
forces, drawing upon skilled men and units from U.S.-based forces. The
result was a slow, steady erosion of its capacity to meet worldwide contingency
obligations. But if Vietnam depleted the Army, it also provided certain
advantages. The war was a laboratory in which to test and evaluate new
equipment and techniques applicable to counterinsurgency—among others,
the use of chemical defoliants and herbicides, both to remove the jungle
canopy that gave cover to the guerrillas and to destroy his crops. As the
activities of all the services expanded, U.S. military strength in South
Vietnam increased from under 700 at the start of 1960 to almost 24,000
by the end of 1964. Of these, 15,000 were Army and a little over 2,000
were Army advisers.

Changes in American command arrangements attested to the growing

633

commitment. In February 1962 the Joint Chiefs of Staff established the
United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (USMACV), in Saigon
as the senior American military headquarters in South Vietnam, and appointed
General Paul D. Harkins as commander (COMUSMACV). Harkins reported to the
Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), in Hawaii, but because of high-level
interest in South Vietnam, enjoyed special access to military and civilian
leaders in Washington as well. Soon MACV moved into the advisory effort
hitherto directed by the Military Assistance Advisory Group. To simplify
the advisory chain of command, the latter was disestablished in May 1964,
and MACV took direct control. As the senior Army commander in South Vietnam,
the MACV commander also commanded Army support units; for day-to-day operations,
however, control of such units was vested in the corps and division senior
advisers. For administrative and logistical support Army units looked to
the U.S. Army Support Group, Vietnam (later the U.S. Army Support Command),
which was established in mid-1962.

Though command arrangements worked tolerably well, complaints were heard
in and out of the Army. Some officials pressed for a separate Army component
commander, who would be responsible both for operations and for logistical
support—an arrangement enjoyed by other services in South Vietnam. Airmen
tended to believe that an Army command already existed, disguised as MACV.
They believed that General Harkins, though a joint commander, favored the
Army in the bitter interservice rivalry over the roles and missions of
aviation in South Vietnam. Some critics thought his span of control excessive,
for Harkins' responsibility extended to Thailand, where Army combat units
had deployed in 1962, aiming to overawe Communist forces in neighboring
Laos. The Army undertook several logistical projects in Thailand, and Army
engineers, signalmen, and other support forces remained there after combat
forces withdrew in the fall of 1962.

While the Americans strengthened their position in South Vietnam and
Thailand, the Communists tightened their grip in Laos. In 1962 agreements
on that small, land-locked nation were signed in Geneva requiring all foreign
military forces to leave Laos. American advisers, including hundreds of
Special Forces, departed. But the agreements were not honored by North
Vietnam. Its army, together with Laotian Communist forces, consolidated
their hold on areas adjacent to both North and South Vietnam through which
passed the network of jungle roads called the Ho Chi Minh Trail. As a result,
it became easier to move supplies south to support the Viet Cong in the
face of the new dangers embodied in U.S. advisers, weapons, and tactics.

634

Counterinsurgency Falters

At first the enhanced mobility and firepower afforded the South Vietnamese
Army by helicopters, armored personnel carriers, and close air support
surprised and overwhelmed the Viet Cong. Saigon's forces reacted more quickly
to insurgent attacks and penetrated many Viet Cong areas. Even more threatening
to the insurgents was Diem's strategic hamlet program, launched in late
1961. Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, an ardent sponsor of the program,
hoped to create thousands of new, fortified villages, often by moving peasants
from their existing homes. Hamlet construction and defense were the responsibility
of the new residents, with paramilitary and ARVN forces providing initial
security while the peasants were recruited and organized. As security improved,
Diem and Nhu hoped to enact social, economic, and political reforms which,
when fully carried out, would constitute Saigon's revolutionary response
to Viet Cong promises of social and economic betterment. If successful,
the program might destroy the insurgency by separating and protecting the
rural population from the Viet Cong, threatening the rebellion's base of
support.

By early 1963, however, the Viet Cong had learned to cope with the army's
new weapons and more aggressive tactics and had begun a campaign to eliminate
the strategic hamlets. The insurgents became adept at countering helicopters
and slow-flying aircraft and learned the vulnerabilities of armored personnel
carriers. In addition, their excellent intelligence, combined with the
predictability of ARVN's tactics and pattern of operations, enabled the
Viet Cong to evade or ambush government forces. The new weapons the United
States had provided the South Vietnamese did not compensate for the stifling
influence of poor leadership, dubious tactics, and inexperience. The much
publicized defeat of government forces at the Delta village of Ap Bac in
January 1963 demonstrated both the Viet Cong's skill in countering ARVN's
new capabilities and the latter's inherent weaknesses. Faulty intelligence,
poorly planned and executed fire support, and overcautious leadership contributed
to the outcome. But Ap Bac's significance transcended a single battle.
The defeat was a portent of things to come. Now able to challenge ARVN
units of equal strength in quasi-conventional battles, the Viet Cong were
moving into a more intense stage of revolutionary war.

As the Viet Cong became stronger and bolder, the South Vietnamese Army
became more cautious and less offensive-minded. Government forces became
reluctant to respond to Viet Cong depredations in the countryside, avoided
night operations, and resorted to ponderous sweeps against vague military
objectives, rarely making contact with their enemies. Meanwhile,

635

the Viet Cong concentrated on destroying strategic hamlets, showing
that they considered the settlements, rather than ARVN forces, the greater
danger to the insurgency. Poorly defended hamlets and outposts were overrun
or subverted by enemy agents who infiltrated with peasants arriving from
the countryside.

The Viet Cong's campaign was aided by Saigon's failures. The government
built too many hamlets to defend. Hamlet militia varied from those who
were poorly trained and armed to those who were not trained or armed at
all. Fearing that weapons given to the militia would fall to the Viet Cong,
local officials often withheld arms. Forced relocation, use of forced peasant
labor to construct hamlets, and tardy payment of compensation for relocation
were but a few reasons why peasants turned against the program. Few meaningful
reforms took place. Accurate information on the program's true condition
and on the decline in rural security was hidden from Diem by officials
eager to please him with reports of progress. False statistics and reports
misled U.S. officials, too, about the progress of the counterinsurgency
effort.

If the decline in rural security was not always apparent to Americans,
the lack of enlightened political leadership on the part of Diem was all
too obvious. Diem habitually interfered in military matters—bypassing the
chain of command to order operations, forbidding commanders to take casualties,
and appointing military leaders on the basis of political loyalty rather
than competence. Many military and civilian appointees, especially province
and district chiefs, were dishonest and put career and fortune above the
national interest. When Buddhist opposition to certain policies erupted
into violent antigovernment demonstrations in 1963, Diem's uncompromising
stance and use of military force to suppress the demonstrators caused some
generals to decide that the President was a liability in the fight against
the Viet Cong. On 1 November, with American encouragement, a group of reform-minded
generals ousted Diem, who was murdered along with his brother.

Political turmoil followed the coup. Emboldened, the insurgents stepped
up operations and increased their control over many rural areas. North
Vietnam's leaders decided to intensify the armed struggle, aiming to demoralize
the South Vietnamese Army and further undermine political authority in
the South. As Viet Cong military activity quickened, regular North Vietnamese
Army units began to train for possible intervention in the war. Men and
equipment continued to flow down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, with North Vietnamese
conscripts replacing the dwindling pool of southerners who had belonged
to the Viet Minh.

636

Setting the Stage for Confrontation

The critical state of rural security that came to light after Diem's
death again prompted the United States to expand its military aid to Saigon.
General Harkins and his successor General William C. Westmoreland urgently
strove to revitalize pacification and counterinsurgency. Army advisers
helped their Vietnamese counterparts to revise national and provincial
pacification plans. They retained the concept of fortified hamlets as the
heart of a new national counterinsurgency program, but corrected the old
abuses, at least in theory. To help implement the program, Army advisers
were assigned to the subsector (district) level for the first time, becoming
more intimately involved in local pacification efforts and in paramilitary
operations. Additional advisers were assigned to units and training centers,
especially those of the Regional and Popular Forces (formerly called the
Civil Guard and Self-Defense Corps). All Army activities, from aviation
support to Special Forces, were strengthened in a concerted effort to undo
the effects of years of Diem's mismanagement.

At the same time, American officials in Washington, Hawaii, and Saigon
began to explore ways to increase military pressure against North Vietnam.
In 1964 the South Vietnamese launched covert raids under MACV's auspices.
Some military leaders, however, believed that only direct air strikes against
North Vietnam would induce a change in Hanoi's policies by demonstrating
American determination to defend South Vietnam's independence. Air strike
plans ranged from immediate massive bombardment of military and industrial
targets to gradually intensifying attacks spanning several months.

The interest in using air power reflected lingering sentiment in the
United States against involving American ground forces once again in a
land war on the Asian continent. Many of President Lyndon B. Johnson's
advisers—among them General Maxwell D. Taylor, who was appointed Ambassador
to Saigon in mid-1964—believed that a carefully calibrated air campaign
would be the most effective means of exerting pressure against the North
and, at the same time, the method least likely to provoke intervention
by China. Taylor thought conventional Army ground forces ill suited to
engage in day-to-day counterinsurgency operations against the Viet Cong
in hamlets and villages. Ground forces might, however, be used to protect
vital air bases in the South and to repel any North Vietnamese attack across
the demilitarized zone, which separated North from South Vietnam. Together,
a more vigorous counterinsurgency effort in the South and military pressure
against the North might buy time for Saigon to put its political house
in order, boost flagging military and civilian morale, and strengthen its
military

637

position in the event of a negotiated peace. Taylor and Westmoreland,
the senior U.S. officials in South Vietnam, agreed that Hanoi was unlikely
to change its course unless convinced that it could not succeed in the
South. Both recognized that air strikes were neither a panacea nor a substitute
for military efforts in the South.

As each side undertook more provocative military actions, the likelihood
of a direct military confrontation between North Vietnam and the United
States increased. The crisis came in early August 1964 in the international
waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked U.S.
naval vessels engaged in surveillance of North Vietnam's coastal defenses.
The Americans promptly launched retaliatory air strikes. At the request
of President Johnson, Congress overwhelmingly passed the Southeast Asia
Resolution—the so-called Gulf of Tonkin Resolution—authorizing all actions
necessary to protect American forces and to provide for the defense of
the nation's allies in Southeast Asia. Considered by some in the administration
as the equivalent of a declaration of war, this broad grant of authority
encouraged Johnson to expand American military efforts within South Vietnam,
against North Vietnam, and in Southeast Asia at large.

By late 1964, both sides were poised to increase their stake in the
war. Regular NVA units had begun moving south and stood at the Laotian
frontier, on the threshold of crossing into South Vietnam's Central Highlands.
U.S. air and naval forces stood ready to renew their attacks. On 7 February
1965, Communist forces attacked an American compound in Pleiku in the Central
Highlands and a few days later bombed American quarters in Qui Nhon. The
United States promptly bombed military targets in the North. A few weeks
later, President Johnson approved ROLLING THUNDER, a campaign of sustained,
direct air strikes of progressively increasing strength against military
and industrial targets in North Vietnam. Signs of intensifying conflict
appeared in South Vietnam as well. Strengthening their forces at all echelons,
from village guerrillas to main force regiments, the Viet Cong quickened
military activity in late 1964 and in the first half of 1965. At Binh Gia,
a village forty miles east of Saigon in Phuoc Tuy Province, a multiregimental
Viet Cong force—possibly the 1st Viet Cong Infantry Division—fought
and defeated several South Vietnamese battalions.

Throughout the spring the Viet Cong sought to disrupt pacification and
oust the government from many rural areas. The insurgents made deep inroads
in the central coastal provinces and withstood government efforts to reduce
their influence in the Delta and in the critical provinces around Saigon.
Committed to static defense of key towns and bases, government forces were
unable or unwilling to respond to attacks against rural commu-

638

nities. In late spring and early summer, strong Communist forces sought
a major military victory over the South Vietnamese Army by attacking border
posts and highland camps. The enemy also hoped to draw government forces
from populated areas, to weaken pacification further. By whipsawing war-weary
ARVN forces between coast and highland and by inflicting a series of damaging
defeats against regular units, the enemy hoped to undermine military morale
and popular confidence in the Saigon government. And by accelerating the
dissolution of government military forces, already racked by high desertions
and casualties, the Communists hoped to compel the South Vietnamese to
abandon the battlefield and seek an all-Vietnamese political settlement
that would compel the United States to leave South Vietnam.

By the summer of 1965, the Viet Cong, strengthened by several recently
infiltrated NVA regiments, had gained the upper hand over government forces
in some areas of South Vietnam. With U.S. close air support and the aid
of Army helicopter gunships, Saigon's forces repelled many enemy attacks,
but suffered heavy casualties. Elsewhere highland camps and border outposts
had to be abandoned. ARVN's cumulative losses from battle deaths and desertions
amounted to nearly a battalion a week. Saigon was hard pressed to find
men to replenish these heavy losses and completely unable to match the
growth of Communist forces from local recruitment and infiltration. Some
American officials doubted whether the South Vietnamese could hold out
until ROLLING THUNDER created pressures sufficiently strong to convince
North Vietnam's leaders to reduce the level of combat in the South. General
Westmoreland and others believed that U.S. ground forces were needed to
stave off an irrevocable shift of the military and political balance in
favor of the enemy.

For a variety of diplomatic, political, and military reasons, President
Johnson approached with great caution any commitment of large ground combat
forces to South Vietnam. Yet preparations had been under way for some time.
In early March 1965, a few days after ROLLING THUNDER began, American marines
went ashore in South Vietnam to protect the large airfield at Da Nang—a
defensive security mission. Even as they landed, General Harold K. Johnson,
Chief of Staff of the Army, was in South Vietnam to assess the situation.
Upon returning to Washington, he recommended a substantial increase in
American military assistance, including several combat divisions. He wanted
U.S. forces either to interdict the Laotian panhandle to stop infiltration
or to counter a growing enemy threat in the central and northern provinces.

But President Johnson sanctioned only the dispatch of additional marines
to increase security at Da Nang and to secure other coastal enclaves. He
also

639

authorized the Army to begin deploying nearly 20,000 logistical troops,
the main body of the 1st Logistical Command, to Southeast Asia. (Westmoreland
had requested such a command in late 1964.) At the same time, the President
modified the marines' mission to allow them to conduct offensive operations
close to their bases. A few weeks later, to protect American bases in the
vicinity of Saigon, Johnson approved sending the first Army combat unit,
the 173d Airborne Brigade (Separate), to South Vietnam. Arriving from Okinawa
in early May, the brigade moved quickly to secure the air base at Bien
Hoa, just northeast of Saigon. With its arrival, U.S. military strength
in South Vietnam passed 50,000. Despite added numbers and expanded missions,
American ground forces had yet to engage the enemy in full-scale combat.

Indeed, the question of how best to use large numbers of American ground
forces was still unresolved on the eve of their deployment. Focusing on
population security and pacification, some planners saw U.S. combat forces
concentrating their efforts in coastal enclaves and around key urban centers
and bases. Under this plan, such forces would provide a security shield
behind which the Vietnamese could expand the pacification zone; when required,
American combat units would venture beyond their enclaves as mobile reaction
forces.

This concept, largely defensive in nature, reflected the pattern established
by the first Army combat units to enter South Vietnam. But the mobility
and offensive firepower of U.S. ground units suggested their use in remote,
sparsely populated regions to seek out and engage main force enemy units
as they infiltrated into South Vietnam or emerged from their secret bases.
While secure coastal logistical enclaves and base camps still would be
required, the weight of the military effort would be focused on the destruction
of enemy military units. Yet even in this alternative, American units would
serve indirectly as a shield for pacification activities in the more heavily
populated lowlands and Delta. A third proposal had particular appeal to
General Johnson. He wished to employ U.S. and allied ground forces across
the Laotian panhandle to interdict enemy infiltration into South Vietnam.
Here was a more direct and effective way to stop infiltration than the
use of air power. Encumbered by military and political problems, the idea
was revived periodically but always rejected. The pattern of deployment
that actually developed in South Vietnam was a compromise between the first
two concepts.

For any type of operations, secure logistical enclaves at deep-water
ports (Cam Ranh Bay, Nha Trang, Qui Nhon, for example) were a military
necessity. In such areas combat units arrived and bases developed for regional

640

logistical complexes to support the troops. As the administration neared
a decision on combat deployment, the Army began to identify and ready units
for movement overseas and to prepare mobilization plans for Selected Reserve
forces. The dispatch of Army units to the Dominican Republic in May 1965
to forestall a leftist take-over caused only minor adjustments to the build-up
plans. The episode nevertheless showed how unexpected demands elsewhere
in the world could deplete the strategic reserve, and it underscored the
importance of mobilization if the Army was to meet worldwide contingencies
and supply trained combat units to Westmoreland as well.

The prospect of deploying American ground forces also revived discussions
of allied command arrangements. For a time, Westmoreland considered placing
South Vietnamese and American forces under a single commander, an arrangement
similar to that of U.S. and South Korean forces during the Korean War.
In the face of South Vietnamese opposition, however, the idea was dropped.
Arrangements with other allies were varied. Americans in South Vietnam
were joined by combat units from Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand,
and by noncombat elements from several other nations. Westmoreland entered
into separate agreements with each commander in turn; the compacts ensured
close co-operation with MACV, but fell short of giving Westmoreland command
over the allied forces.

While diversity marked these arrangements, Westmoreland strove for unity
within the American build-up. As forces began to deploy to South Vietnam,
the Army again sought to elevate the U.S. Army, Vietnam (USARV), to a full-fledged
Army component command with responsibility for combat operations. But Westmoreland
successfully warded off the challenge to his dual role as unified commander
of MACV and Army commander. For the remainder of the war, USARV performed
solely in a logistical and administrative capacity; unlike MACV's air and
naval component commands, the Army component did not exercise operational
control over combat forces, special forces, or field advisers. However,
through its logistical, engineer, signal, medical, military police, and
aviation commands all established in the course of the build-up, USARV
commanded and managed a support base of unprecedented size and scope.

Despite this victory, unity of command over the ground war in South
Vietnam eluded Westmoreland, as did over-all control of U.S. military operations
in support of the war. Most air and naval operations outside of South Vietnam,
including ROLLING THUNDER, were carried out by the Commander in Chief,
Pacific, and his air and naval commanders from his headquarters thousands
of miles away in Hawaii. This patchwork of command arrangements contributed
to the lack of a unified strategy, the fragmentation

641

of operations, and the pursuit of parochial service interests to the
detriment of the war effort. No single American commander had complete
authority or responsibility to fashion an over-all strategy or to co-ordinate
all military aspects of the war in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, Westmoreland
labored under a variety of political and operational constraints on the
use of the combat forces he did command. Like the Korean War, the struggle
in South Vietnam was complicated by enemy sanctuaries and by geographical
and political restrictions on allied operations. Ground forces were barred
from operating across South Vietnam's borders into Cambodia, Laos, or North
Vietnam, although the border areas of those countries were vital to the
enemy's war effort. These factors narrowed Westmoreland's freedom of action
and detracted from his efforts to make effective use of American military
power.

Groundwork for Combat: Build-up and Strategy

On 28 July 1965, President Johnson announced plans to deploy additional
combat units and to increase American military strength in South Vietnam
to 175,000 by year's end. The Army already was preparing hundreds of units
for duty in Southeast Asia, among them the newly activated 1st Cavalry
Division (Airmobile). Other combat units—the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne
Division, and all three brigades of the 1st Infantry Division—were either
ready to go or already on their way to Vietnam. Together with hundreds
of support and logistical units, these combat units constituted the first
phase of the build-up during the summer and fall of 1965.

At the same time, President Johnson decided not to mobilize any Reserve
units. The President's decision profoundly affected the manner in which
the Army supported and sustained the build-up. To meet the call for additional
combat forces and to obtain manpower to enlarge its training base and to
maintain a pool for rotation and replacement of soldiers in South Vietnam,
the Army had to increase its active strength, over the next three years,
by nearly 1.5 million men. Necessarily, it relied on larger draft calls
and voluntary enlistments, supplementing them with heavy draw downs of
experienced soldiers from units in Europe and South Korea and extensions
of some tours of duty to retain specialists, technicians, and cadres who
could train recruits or round out deploying units. Combat units assigned
to the strategic reserve were used to meet a large portion of MACV's force
requirements, and Reservists were not available to replace them. Mobilization
could have eased the additional burden of providing noncommissioned officers
(NCO's) and officers to man the Army's growing training bases. As matters
stood,
On 28 July 1965, President Johnson announced plans to deploy additional
combat units and to increase American military strength in South Vietnam
to 175,000 by year's end. The Army already was preparing hundreds of units
for duty In Southeast Asia, among them the newly activated 1st Cavalry
Division (Airmobile). Other combat units—the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne
Division, and all three brigades of the 1st Infantry Division—were either
ready to go or already on their way to Vietnam. Together with hundreds
of support and logistical units, these combat units constituted the first
phase of the build-up during the summer and fall of 1965.

At the same time, President Johnson decided not to mobilize any Reserve
units. The President's decision profoundly affected the manner in which
the Army supported and sustained the build-up. To meet the call for additional
combat forces and to obtain manpower to enlarge its training base and to
maintain a pool for rotation and replacement of soldiers in South Vietnam,
the Army had to increase its active strength, over the next three years,
by nearly 1.5 million men. Necessarily, it relied on larger draft calls
and voluntary enlistments, supplementing them with heavy draw downs of
experienced soldiers from units in Europe and South Korea and extensions
of some tours of duty to retain specialists, technicians, and cadres who
could train recruits or round out deploying units. Combat units assigned
to the strategic reserve were used to meet a large portion of MACV's force
requirements, and Reservists were not available to replace them. Mobilization
could have eased the additional burden of providing noncommissioned officers
(NCO's) and officers to man the Army's growing training bases. As matters
stood,

642

requirements for experienced cadres competed with the demands for sea-soned
leaders in units deploying to South Vietnam.

The personnel turbulence caused by competing demands for the Army's
limited manpower was intensified by a one-year tour of duty in South Vietnam.
A large number of men was needed to sustain the rotational base, often
necessitating the quick return to Vietnam of men with critical skills.
The heightened demand for leaders led to accelerated training programs
and the lowering of standards for NCO's and junior officers. Moreover,
the one-year tour deprived units in South Vietnam of experienced leadership.
In time, the infusion of less-seasoned NCO's and officers contributed to
a host of morale problems that afflicted some Army units. At a deeper level,
the administration's decision against calling the Reserves to active duty
sent the wrong signal to friends and enemies alike, implying that the nation
lacked the resolution to support an effort of the magnitude needed to achieve
American objectives in South Vietnam.

Hence the Army began to organize additional combat units. Three light
infantry brigades were activated, and the 9th Infantry Division was reactivated.
In the meantime the 4th and 25th Infantry Divisions were alerted for
deployment to South Vietnam. With the exception of a brigade of the 25th,
all of the combat units activated and alerted during the second half of
1965 deployed to South Vietnam during 1966 and 1967. By the end of
1965, U.S. military strength in South Vietnam had reached 184,000; a year
later it stood at 385,000; and by the end of 1967 it approached 490,000.
Army personnel accounted for nearly two-thirds of the total. Of the Army's
eighteen divisions, at the end of 1967, seven were serving in South Vietnam.

Facing a deteriorating military situation, Westmoreland in the summer
of 1965 planned to use his combat units to blunt the enemy's spring-summer
offensive. As they arrived in the country, Westmoreland moved them into
a defensive arc around Saigon and secured bases for the arrival of subsequent
units. His initial aim was defensive—to stop losing the war and to build
a structure that could support a later transition to an offensive campaign.
As additional troops poured in, Westmoreland planned to seek out and defeat
major enemy forces. Throughout both phases, the South Vietnamese, relieved
of major combat tasks, were to refurbish their forces and conduct an aggressive
pacification program behind the American shield. In a third and final stage,
as enemy main force units were driven into their secret zones and bases,
Westmoreland hoped to achieve victory by destroying those sanctuaries and
shifting the weight of the military effort to pacification, thereby at
last subduing the Viet Cong throughout rural South Vietnam.

The fulfillment of this concept rested not only on the success of American's
efforts to find and defeat enemy forces, but on the success of Saigon's

643

pacification program. In June 1965 the last in a series of coups that
followed Diem's overthrow brought in a military junta headed by Lt. Gen.
Nguyen Van Thieu as Chief of State and Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky as
Prime Minister. The new government provided the political stability requisite
for successful pacification. Success hinged also on the ability of the
U.S. air campaign against the North to reduce the infiltration of men and
material, dampening the intensity of combat in the South and inducing Communist
leaders in Hanoi to alter their long-term strategic goals. Should any strand
of this threefold strategy—the campaign against Communist forces in the
South, Saigon's pacification program, and the air war in the North—falter,
Westmoreland's prospects would become poorer. Yet he was directly responsible
for only one element, the U.S. military effort in the South. To a lesser
degree, through American advice and assistance to the South Vietnamese
forces, he also influenced Saigon's efforts to suppress the Viet Cong and
to carry out pacification.

Army Operations in III and IV Corps, 1965-1967

Centered on the defense of Saigon, Westmoreland's concept of operations
in the III Corps area had a clarity of design and purpose that was not
always apparent elsewhere in South Vietnam. Nearly two
years would pass before U.S. forces could maintain a security belt around
the capital and at the same time attack the enemy's bases. But Westmoreland's
ultimate aims and the difficulties he would encounter were both foreshadowed
by the initial combat operations in the summer and fall of 1965.

Joined by newly arrived Australian infantrymen, the 173d Airborne Brigade
during June began operations in War Zone D, a longtime enemy base north
of Saigon. Though diverted several times to other tasks, the brigade gained
experience in conducting heliborne assaults and accustomed itself to the
rigors of jungle operations. It also established a pattern of operations
that was to grow all too familiar. Airmobile assaults, often in the wake
of B-52 air strikes, were followed by extensive patrolling, episodic contact
with the Viet Cong, and withdrawal after a few days' stay in the enemy's
territory. In early November the airborne soldiers uncovered evidence of
the enemy's recent and hasty departure—abandoned camps, recently vacated
tunnels, and caches of food and supplies. However, the Viet Cong, by observing
the brigade, began to formulate plans for dealing with the Americans.

On 8 November, moving deeper into War Zone D, the brigade encountered
the first significant resistance. A multibattalion Viet Cong force attacked
at close quarters and forced the Americans into a tight defensive perimeter.
Hand-to-hand combat ensued as the enemy tried to "hug" Ameri-

645

can soldiers to prevent the delivery of supporting air and artillery
fire. Unable to prepare a landing zone to receive reinforcements or to
evacuate casualties, the beleaguered Americans withstood repeated enemy
assaults. At nightfall the Viet Cong ceased their attack and withdrew under
cover of darkness. Next morning, when reinforcements arrived, the brigade
pursued the enemy, finding evidence that he had suffered heavy casualties.
Such operations inflicted losses but failed either to destroy the enemy's
base or to prevent him from returning to it later on.

Like the airborne brigade, the 1st Infantry Division initially divided
its efforts. In addition to securing its base camps north of Saigon, the
division helped South Vietnamese forces clear an area west of the capital
in the vicinity of Cu Chi in Hau Nghia Province. Reacting to reports of
enemy troop concentrations, units of the division launched a series of
operations in the fall of 1965 and early 1966 that entailed quick forays
into the Ho Bo and Boi Loi woods, the Michelin Rubber Plantation, the Rung
Sat swamp, and War Zones C and D. In Operation MASTIFF, for example, the
division sought to disrupt Viet Cong infiltration routes between War Zones
C and D that crossed the Boi Loi woods in Tay Ninh Province, an area that
had not been penetrated by government forces for several years.

But defense of Saigon was the first duty of the "Big Red One" as well
as of the 25th Infantry Division, which arrived in the spring of 1966.
The 1st Division took up a position protecting the northern approaches,
blocking Route 15 from the Cambodian border. The 25th guarded the western
approaches, chiefly Route 1 and the Saigon River. The two brigades of the
25th Division served also as a buffer between Saigon and the enemy's base
areas in Tay Ninh Province. Westmoreland hoped, however, that the 25th
Division would loosen the insurgents' tenacious hold on Hau Nghia Province
as well. Here American soldiers found to their amazement that the division's
camp at Cu Chi had been constructed atop an extensive Viet Cong tunnel
complex. Extending over an area of several miles, this subterranean network,
one of several in the region, contained hospitals, command centers, and
storage sites. The complex, though partially destroyed by Army "tunnel
rats," was never completely eliminated and lasted for the duration of the
war. The With Division worked closely with South Vietnamese Army and paramilitary
forces throughout 1966 and 1967 to foster pacification in Hau Nghia and
to secure its own base. But suppressing insurgency in Hau Nghia proved
as difficult as eradicating the tunnels at Cu Chi.

As the number of Army combat units in Vietnam grew larger, Westmoreland
established two corps-size commands, I Field Force in the II Corps area
and II Field Force in the III Corps area. Reporting directly to the

646

MACV commander, the field force commander was the senior Army tactical
commander in his area and the senior U.S. adviser to ARVN forces there.
Working closely with his South Vietnamese counterpart, he co-ordinated
ARVN and American operations by establishing territorial priorities for
combat and pacification efforts. Through his deputy senior adviser, a position
established in 1967, the field force commander was able to keep abreast
both of the activities of U.S. sector (province) and subsector (district)
advisers and of the progress of Saigon's pacification efforts. A similar
arrangement was set up in I Corps, where the commander of the III Marine
Amphibious Force was the equivalent of a field force commander. Only in
IV Corps, in the Mekong Delta where few American combat units served, did
Westmoreland choose not to establish a corps-size command. There the senior
U.S. adviser served as COMUSMACV's representative; he commanded Army advisory
and support units, but no combat units.

Although Army commanders in III Corps were eager to seek out and engage
enemy main force units in their strongholds along the Cambodian border,
operations at first were devoted to base and area security and to clearing
and rehabilitating roads. The 1st Infantry Division's first major encounter
with the Viet Cong occurred in November as division elements carried out
a routine road security operation along Route 13, in the vicinity of the
village of Bau Bang. Trapping convoys along Route 13 had long been a profitable
Viet Cong tactic. Ambushed by a large, well-entrenched enemy force, division
troops reacted aggressively and mounted a successful counterattack. But
the road was by no means secured; close to enemy bases, the Cambodian border,
and Saigon, Route 13 would be the site of several major battles in years
to come.

Roads were a major concern of U.S. commanders. In some operations, infantrymen
provided security as Army engineers improved neglected routes. Defoliants
and the Rome plow—a bulldozer modified with sharp front blades—removed
from the sides of important highways the jungle growth that provided cover
for Viet Cong ambushes. Road-clearing operations also contributed to pacification
by providing peasants with secure access to local markets. In III Corps,
with its important road network radiating from Saigon, ground mobility
was as essential as airmobility for the conduct of military operations.
Lacking as many helicopters as the airmobile division, the 1st and 25th
Infantry Divisions, like all Army units in South Vietnam, strained the
resources of their own aviation support units and of other Army aviation
units providing area support to obtain the maximum airmobile capacity for
each operation. Nevertheless, on many occasions the Army found itself road
bound.

647

Road and convoy security was also the original justification for introducing
Army mechanized and armor units into South Vietnam in 1966. At first Westmoreland
was reluctant to bring heavy mechanized equipment into South Vietnam, for
it seemed ill suited either to counterinsurgency operations or to operations
during the monsoon season, when all but a few roads were impassable. Armor
advocates pressed Westmoreland to reconsider his policy. Operation CIRCLE
PINES, carried out by elements of the 25th Infantry Division in the spring
of 1966, successfully combined an infantry force and an armor battalion.
This experience, together with new studies indicating a greater potential
for mechanized forces, led Westmoreland to reverse his original policy
and request deployment of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, with its full
complement of tanks, to Vietnam.

Arriving in III Corps in the last half of 1966, the regiment set up
base at Xuan Loc, on Route I northeast of Saigon in Long Khanh Province.
In addition to assuming an area support mission and strengthening the eastern
approaches to Saigon as part of Westmoreland's security belt around the
capital, squadrons of the regiment supported Army units throughout the
corps zone, often "homesteading" with other brigades or divisions.

648

Route security, however, was only the first step in carving out a larger
role for Army mechanized forces. Facing an enemy who employed no armor,
American mechanized units, often in conjunction with airmobile assaults,
acted both as blocking or holding forces and as assault or reaction forces,
where terrain permitted. "Jungle bashing," as offensive armor operations
were sometimes called, had its uses but also its limitations. The intimidating
presence of tanks and personnel carriers was often nullified by their cumbersomeness
and noise, which alerted the enemy to an impending attack. The Viet Cong
also took countermeasures to immobilize tracked vehicles. Crude tank traps,
locally manufactured mines (often made of plastic to thwart discovery by
metal detectors), and well-aimed rocket or recoilless rifle rounds could
disable a tank or personnel carrier. Together with the dust and tropical
humidity, such weapons placed a heavy burden on Army maintenance units.
Yet mechanized units brought the allies enhanced mobility and firepower
and often were essential to counter ambushes or destroy an enemy force
protected by bunkers.

As Army strength increased in III Corps, Westmoreland encouraged his
units to operate farther afield. In early 1966 intelligence reports indicated
that enemy strength and activity were increasing in many of his base areas.
In two operations during the early spring of 1966, units of the 1st and
25th Divisions discovered Viet Cong training camps and supply dumps, some
of the sites honeycombed with tunnels. But they failed to engage major
enemy forces. As Army units made the deepest penetration of War Zone C
since 1961, all signs pointed to the foe's hasty withdrawal into Cambodia.
An airmobile raid failed to locate the enemy's command center, COSVN. (COSVN,
in fact, was fragmented among several sites in Tay Ninh Province and in
nearby Cambodia.) Like the 173d Airborne Brigade's operations, the new
attacks had no lasting effects.

By May 1966 an ominous build-up of enemy forces, among them NVA regiments
that had infiltrated south, was detected in Phuoc Long and Binh Long Provinces
in northern III Corps. U.S. commanders viewed the build-up as a portent
of the enemy's spring offensive, plans for which included an attack on
the district town of Loc Ninh and on a nearby Special Forces camp. The
1st Division responded, sending a brigade to secure Route 13. But the threat
to Loc Ninh heightened in early June, when regiments of the 9th Viet
Cong Division took up positions around the town. The arrival of American
reinforcements apparently prevented an assault. About a week later, however,
an enemy regiment was spotted in fortified positions in a rubber plantation
adjacent to Loc Ninh. Battered by massive air and artillery strikes, the
regiment was dislodged and its position overrun, ending the

649

threat. Americans recorded other successes, trapping Viet Cong ambushers
in a counterambush, securing Loc Ninh, and spoiling the enemy's spring
offensive. But if the enemy still underestimated the mobility and firepower
that U.S. commanders could bring to bear, he had learned how easily Americans
could be lured away from their base camps.

By the summer of 1966 Westmoreland believed he had stopped the losing
trend of a year earlier and could begin the second phase of his general
campaign strategy. This entailed aggressive operations to search out and
destroy enemy main force units, in addition to continued efforts to improve
security in the populated areas of III Corps. In Operation ATTLEBORO he
sent the 196th Infantry Brigade and the 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division,
to Tay Ninh Province to bolster the security of the province seat. Westmoreland's
challenge prompted COSVN to send the 9th Viet Cong Division on a
"countersweep," the enemy's term for operations to counter allied search
and destroy tactics. Moving deeper into the enemy's stronghold, the recently
arrived and inexperienced 196th Infantry Brigade sparred with the enemy.
Then an intense battle erupted, as elements of the brigade were isolated
and surprised by a large enemy force. Operation ATTLEBORO quickly grew
to a multidivision struggle as American commanders sought to maintain contact
with the Viet Cong and to aid their own surrounded forces. Within a matter
of days, elements of the 1st and 25th Divisions, the 173d Airborne Brigade,
and the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment had converged on War Zone C. Control
of ATTLEBORO passed in turn from the 25th to the 1st Division and finally
to the II Field Force, making it the first Army operation in South Vietnam
to be controlled by a corps-size headquarters. With over 22,000 U.S. troops
participating, the battle had become the largest of the war. Yet combat
occurred most often at the platoon and company levels, usually at night.
As the number of American troops increased, the 9th Viet Cong Division
shied away, withdrawing across the Cambodian border. Then Army forces
departed, leaving to the Special Forces the task of detecting the enemy's
inevitable return.

As the threat along the border abated, Westmoreland turned his attention
to the enemy's secret zones near Saigon, among them the so-called Iron
Triangle in Binh Duong Province. Harboring the headquarters of Military
Region IV, the Communist command that directed military and terrorist
activity in and around the capital, this stronghold had gone undisturbed
for several years. Westmoreland hoped to find the command center, disrupt
Viet Cong activity in the capital region, and allow South Vietnamese forces
to accelerate pacification and uproot the stubborn Viet Cong political
organization that flourished in many villages and hamlets.

650

Operation CEDAR FALLS began on 8 January 1967 with the objectives of
destroying the headquarters, interdicting the movement of enemy forces
into the major war zones in III Corps, and defeating Viet Cong units encamped
there. Like ATTLEBORO before it, CEDAR FALLS tapped the manpower and resources
of nearly every major Army unit in the corps area. A series of preliminary
maneuvers brought Army units into position. Several air assaults sealed
off the Iron Triangle, exploiting the natural barriers of the rivers that
formed two of its boundaries. Then American units began a series of sweeps
to push the enemy toward the blocking forces. At the village of Ben Suc,
long under the sway of the insurgents, sixty helicopters descended into
seven landing zones in less than a minute. Ben Suc was surrounded, its
entire population evacuated, and the village and its tunnel complex destroyed.
But insurgent forces had fled before the heliborne assault. As CEDAR FALLS
progressed, U.S. troops destroyed hundreds of enemy fortifications, captured
large quantities of supplies and food, and evacuated other hamlets. Contact
with the enemy was fleeting. Most of the Viet Cong, including the high-level
cadre of the regional command, had escaped, sometimes infiltrating through
allied lines.

By the time Army units left the Iron Triangle, MACV had already received
reports that Viet Cong and NVA regiments were returning to War Zone C in
preparation for a spring offensive. This time Westmoreland hoped to prevent
Communist forces from escaping into Cambodia, as they had done in ATTLEBORO.
From forward field positions established during earlier operations, elements
of the 25th and 1st Divisions, the 196th Infantry Brigade, and the 11th
Armored Cavalry Regiment launched JUNCTION CITY, moving rapidly to establish
a cordon around the war zone and to begin a new sweep of the base area.
As airmobile and mechanized units moved into positions on the morning of
21 February 1967, elements of the 173d Airborne Brigade made the only parachute
drop of the Vietnam War—and the first combat airborne assault since the
Korean War—to establish a blocking position near the Cambodian border.
Then other U.S. units entered the horseshoe-shaped area of operations through
its open end.

Despite the emphasis on speed and surprise, Army units did not encounter
many enemy troops at the outset. As the operation entered its second phase,
however, American forces concentrated their efforts in the eastern portion
of War Zone C, close to Route I3. Here several violent battles erupted,
as Communist forces tried to isolate and defeat individual units and possibly
also to screen the retreat of their comrades into Cambodia. On I9 March
a mechanized unit of the gth Infantry Division was attacked and nearly
overrun along Route Is near the battered village of Bau Bang. The

651

combined firepower of armored cavalry, supporting artillery, and close
air support finally caused the enemy to break contact. A few days later,
at Fire Support Base GOLD, in the vicinity of Soul Tre, an infantry and
artillery battalion of the Pith Infantry engaged the 272d Viet Cong
Regiment. Behind an intense, walking mortar barrage, enemy troops breached
GOLD'S defensive perimeter and rushed into the base. Man-to-man combat
ensued. A complete disaster was averted when Army artillerymen lowered
their howitzers and fired, directly into the oncoming enemy, Beehive artillery
rounds that contained hundreds of dartlike projectiles. The last major
encounter with enemy troops during JUNCTION CITY occurred at the end of
March, when elements of two Viet Cong regiments, the 271st and the
70th (the latter directly subordinate to COSVN) attacked a battalion
of the 1st Infantry Division in a night defensive position deep in War
Zone C, near the Cambodian border. The lopsided casualties—over 600 enemy
killed in contrast to 10 Americans—forcefully illustrated once again the
U.S. ability to call in overwhelmingly superior fire support by artillery,
armed helicopters, and tactical aircraft.

Thereafter, JUNCTION CITY became a pale shadow of the multidivision
effort it had been at its outset. Most Army units were withdrawn, either
to return to their bases or to participate in other operations. The 196th
Infantry Brigade was transferred to I Corps to help replace Marine forces
sent north to meet a growing enemy threat near the demilitarized zone.
Contacts with enemy forces in this final phase were meager. Again a planned
Viet Cong offensive had been aborted; the enemy himself escaped, though
not unscathed.

In the wake of JUNCTION CITY, MACV's attention reverted to the still
critical security conditions around Saigon. The 1st Infantry Division returned
to War Zone D to search for the 271st Viet Cong Regiment and to
disrupt the insurgents' lines of communications between War Zones C and
D. Despite two major contacts, the main body of the regiment eluded its
American pursuers. Army units again returned to the Iron Triangle between
April and July 1967, after enemy forces were detected in their old stronghold.
Supplies and documents were found in quantities even larger than those
discovered in CEDAR FALLS. Once again, however, encounters with the Communists
were fleeting. The enemy's reappearance in the Iron Triangle and War Zone
D, combined with rocket and mortar attacks on U.S. bases around Saigon,
heightened Westmoreland's concern about the security of the capital. When
the 1st Infantry Division's base at Phuoc Vinh and the Bien Hoa Air Base
were attacked in mid-1967, the division mounted operations into the Ong
Dong jungle and the Vinh Loi woods. Other operations

652

swept the jungles and villages of Bien Hoa Province and sought once
again to support pacification in Hau Nghia Province.

These actions pointed up a basic problem. The large, multidivision operations
into the enemy's war zones produced some benefits for the pacification
campaign; by keeping enemy main force regiments at bay, Westmoreland impeded
their access to heavily populated areas and prevented them from reinforcing
Viet Cong provincial and district forces. Yet when American units were
shifted to the border, the local Viet Cong units gained a measure of relief
Westmoreland faced a strategic dilemma: he could not afford to keep substantial
forces away from their bases for more than a few months at a time without
jeopardizing local security. Unless he received additional forces, Westmoreland
would always be torn between two operational imperatives. By the summer
of 1967, MACV's likelihood of receiving more combat troops, beyond those
scheduled to deploy during the latter half of the year and in early 1968,
had become remote. In Washington the administration turned down his request
for an additional 200,000 men.

Meanwhile, however, the 9th Infantry Division and the 199th Infantry
Brigade arrived in South Vietnam. Westmoreland stationed the brigade at
Bien Hoa, where it embarked on FAIRFAX, a year-long operation in which
it worked closely with a South Vietnamese ranger group to improve security
in Gia Dinh Province, which surrounded the capital. Units of the brigade
"paired off,' with South Vietnamese rangers and, working closely with paramilitary
and police forces, sought to uproot the very active Viet Cong local forces
and destroy the enemy's political infrastructure. Typical activities included
ambushes by combined forces; cordon and search operations in villages and
hamlets, often in conjunction with the Vietnamese police; psychological
and civic action operations; surprise road blocks to search for contraband
and Viet Cong supporters; and training programs to develop proficient military
and local self-defense capabilities.

Likewise, the 9th Infantry Division set up bases east and south of Saigon.
One brigade deployed to Bear Cat; another set up camp at Tan An in Long
An Province, south of Saigon, where it sought to secure portions of Route
4, an important north-south highway connecting Saigon with the rice-rich
lower Delta. Further south, the 2d Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, established
its base at Dong Tam in Dinh Tuong Province in IV Corps. Located in the
midst of rice paddies and swamps, Dong Tam was created by Army engineers
with sand dredged from the My Tho River. From this 600-acre base, the brigade
began a series of riverine operations unique to the Army's experience in
South Vietnam.

To patrol and fight in the inundated marshlands and rice paddies and
along the numerous canals and waterways crossing the Delta, the Army

653

modernized the concept of riverine warfare employed during the Civil
War by Union forces on the Mississippi River and by the French during the
Indochina War. The Mobile Riverine Force utilized a joint Army-Navy task
force controlled by a ground commander. In contrast to amphibious operations,
where control reverts to the ground commander only after the force is ashore,
riverine warfare was an extension of land combat, with infantry units traveling
by water rather than by trucks or tracked vehicles. Aided by a Navy river
support squadron and river assault squadron, infantrymen were housed on
barracks ships and supported by gunships or fire support boats called monitors.
Howitzers and mortars mounted on barges provided artillery support. The
ad Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, began operations against the Cam Son
Secret Zone, approximately 10 miles west of Dong Tam, in May 1967.

Meanwhile, the war of main force units along the borders waxed and waned
in relation to seasonal weather cycles, which affected the enemy's pattern
of logistical activity, his ability to infiltrate men and supplies from
North Vietnam, and his penchant for meticulous preparation of the battlefield.
By the fall of 1967, enemy activity had increased again in the base areas,
and sizable forces began appearing along South Vietnam's border from the
demilitarized zone to III Corps. By the year's end, American forces had
returned to War Zone C to screen the Cambodian border to prevent Communist
forces from re-entering South Vietnam. Units of the 25th Infantry Division
that had been conducting operations in the vicinity of Saigon moved to
the border. Elements of the 1st Infantry Division had resumed road-clearing
operations along Route I3, but the division soon faced another major enemy
effort to capture Loc Ninh. On 29 October Viet Cong units assaulted the
CIDG camp and the district command post, breaching the defense perimeter.
Intense air and artillery fire prevented its complete loss. Within a few
hours, South Vietnamese and U.S. reinforcements reached Loc Ninh, their
arrival made possible by the enemy's failure to capture the local airstrip.

When the build-up ended, ten Army battalions were positioned within
Loc Ninh and between the town and the Cambodian border. During the next
two days allied units warded off repeated enemy attacks as Communist forces
desperately tried to score a victory. Tactical air support and artillery
fire prevented the enemy from massing though he outnumbered allied forces
by about ten to one. At the end of a ten-day battle, over 800 enemy were
left on the battlefield, while allied deaths numbered only 50. Some 452
close air support sorties, 8 B-52 bomber strikes, and 30,125 rounds of
artillery had been directed at the enemy. Once again, Loc Ninh had served
as a lightning rod to attract U.S. forces to the border. The pattern of
two wars—one in the villages, one on the border—continued without decision.

654

Army Operations in II and I Corps, 1965-1967

Spearheaded by at least three NVA regiments, Communist forces mounted
a strong offensive in South Vietnam's Central Highlands during the summer
of 1965, overrunning border camps and besieging some district towns. Here
the enemy threatened to cut the nation in two. To meet the danger, Westmoreland
proposed to introduce the newly organized Army airmobile division, the
1st Cavalry Division, with its large contingent of helicopters, directly
into the highlands. Some of his superiors in Hawaii and Washington opposed
this plan, preferring to secure coastal bases. Though Westmoreland contended
that enclave security made poor use of U.S. mobility and offensive firepower,
he was unable to overcome the fear of an American Dien Bien Phu, if a unit
in the highlands should be isolated and cut off from the sea.

In the end, the deployment of Army forces to II Corps reflected a compromise.
As additional American and South Korean forces arrived during 1965 and
1966, they often reinforced South Vietnamese efforts to secure coastal
enclaves, usually centered on the most important cities and ports. At Phan Thiet, Tuy Hoa, Qui Nhon, Nha Trang, and Cam Ranh Bay,
allied forces provided area security, not only protecting the ports and
logistical complexes that developed in many of these locations, but also
assisting Saigon's forces to expand the pacified zone that extended from
the urban cores to the countryside.

Here, as in III Corps, Westmoreland addressed two enemy threats. Local
insurgents menaced populated areas along the coastal plain, while enemy
main force units intermittently pushed forward in the western highlands.
Between the two regions stretched the Piedmont, a transitional area in
whose lush valleys lived many South Vietnamese. In the piedmont's craggy
hills and jungle-covered uplands, local and main force Viet Cong units
had long flourished by exacting food and taxes from the lowland population
through a well-entrenched shadow government. Although the enemy's bases
in the Piedmont did not have the notoriety of the secret zones near Saigon,
they served similar purposes, harboring units, command centers, and training
and logistical facilities. Extensions of the Ho Chi Minh Trail ran from
the highlands through the Piedmont to the coast, facilitating the movement
of enemy units and supplies from province to province. To be effective,
allied operations on the coast had to uproot local units living amid the
population and to eradicate the enemy base areas in the Piedmont, together
with the main force units that supported the village and hamlet guerrillas.

Despite their sparse population and limited economic resources, the
highlands had a strategic importance equal to and perhaps greater than
the

656

coastal plain. Around the key highland towns—Pleiku, Kontum, Ban Me
Thuot, and Da Lat—South Vietnamese and U.S. forces had created enclaves.
Allied forces protected the few roads that traversed the highlands, screened
the border, and reinforced outposts and Montagnard settlements from which
the irregulars and Army Special Forces sought to detect enemy cross-border
movements and to strengthen tribal resistance to the Communists. Such border
posts and tribal camps, rather than major towns, most often were the object
of enemy attacks. Combined with road interdiction, such attacks enabled
the Communists to disperse the limited number of defenders and to discourage
the maintenance of outposts.

Such actions served a larger strategic objective. The enemy planned
to develop the highlands into a major base area from which to mount or
support operations in other areas. A Communist-dominated highlands would
be a strategic fulcrum, enabling the enemy to shift the weight of his operations
to any part of South Vietnam. The highlands also formed a "killing zone"
where Communist forces could mass. Challenging American forces had become
the principal objective of leaders in Hanoi, who saw their plans to undermine
Saigon's military resistance thwarted by U.S. intervention. Salient victories
against Americans, they believed, might deter a further build-up and weaken
Washington's resolve to continue the war.

The 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) moved with its 435 helicopters
into this hornet's nest in September 1965, establishing its main base at
An Khe, a government stronghold on Route I9, halfway between the coastal
port of Qui Nhon and the highland city of Pleiku. The location was strategic:
at An Khe the division could help to keep open the vital east-west road
from the coast to the highlands and could pivot between the highlands and
the coastal districts, where the Viet Cong had made deep inroads. Meanwhile,
the1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, had begun operations in the rugged
Song Con valley, about 18 miles northeast of An Khe. Here, on 15 September,
one battalion ran into heavy fire from an enemy force in the tree line
around its landing zone. Four helicopters were lost and three company commanders
killed; reinforcements could not land because of the intense enemy fire.
With the fight at close quarters, the Americans were unable to call in
close air support, armed gunships, and artillery fire, except at the risk
of their own lives. But as the enemy pressed them back, supporting fires
were placed almost on top of the contending forces. At dusk the fighting
subsided; as the Americans steeled themselves for a night attack, the enemy,
hard hit by almost 100 air strikes and 11,000 rounds of artillery, slipped
away. Inspection of the battlefield revealed that the Americans had unwittingly
landed in the midst of a heavily bunkered enemy base.

657

The fight had many hallmarks of highland battles that were to come.
Americans had little information about enemy forces or the area of operations;
the enemy could "hug" Army units to nullify their massive advantage in
firepower. In compensation, the enemy underestimated the accuracy of such
fire and the willingness of U.S. commanders to call it in even when fighting
at close quarters. Finally, enemy forces when pressed too hard could usually
escape, and pursuit, as a rule, was futile.

Less than a month later the newly arrived airmobile division received
its own baptism of combat. The North Vietnamese Army attacked a Special
Forces camp at Plei Me; when it was repulsed, Westmoreland directed the
division to launch an offensive to locate and destroy enemy regiments that
had been identified in the vicinity of the camp. The result was the battle
of the Ia Drang valley, named for a small river that flowed through the
area of operations. For thirty-five days the division pursued and fought
the 32d, 33d, and 66th North Vietnamese Regiments, until
the enemy, suffering heavy casualties, returned to his bases in Cambodia.

With scout platoons of its air cavalry squadron covering front and flanks,
each battalion of the division's 1st Brigade established company bases
from which patrols searched for enemy forces. For several days neither
ground patrols nor aero-scouts found any trace, but on 4 November the scouts
spotted a regimental aid station several miles west of Plei Me. Quick reacting
aerorifle platoons converged on the site. Hovering above, the airborne
scouts detected an enemy battalion nearby and attacked from UH-IB gunships
with aerial rockets and machine guns. Operating beyond the range of their
ground artillery, Army units engaged the enemy in an intense firelight..
Again enemy troops "hugged" American forces, then broke contact as reinforcements
began to arrive.

The search for the main body of the enemy continued for the next few
days, with Army units concentrating their efforts in the vicinity of the
Chu Pang Massif, a mountain near the Cambodian border that was believed
to be an enemy base. Communist forces were given little rest, as patrols
harried and ambushed them. The enemy attacked an American patrol base,
Landing Zone MARY, at night, but was repulsed by the first night air assault
into a defensive perimeter under fire, accompanied by aerial rocket fire.

The heaviest fighting was yet to come. As the division began the second
stage of its campaign, enemy forces began to move out of the Chu Pong base.
Units of the 1st Cavalry Division advanced to establish artillery bases
and landing zones at the base of the mountain. Landing Zone X-RAY was one
of several U.S. positions vulnerable to attack by the enemy forces that
occupied the surrounding high ground. Here on 14 November began fighting
that

658

pitted three battalions against elements of two NVA regiments. Withstanding
repeated mortar attacks and infantry assaults, the Americans used every
means of firepower available to them—the division's own gunships, massive
artillery bombardment, hundreds of strafing and bombing attacks by tactical
aircraft, and earth-shaking bombs dropped by B-52 bombers from Guam—to
turn back a determined enemy. The Communists lost 600 dead, the Americans
79.

Although badly hurt, the enemy did not leave the Ia Drang valley. Elements
of the 66th North Vietnamese Regiment moving east toward Plei Me
encountered an American battalion on 17 November, a few miles north of
X-RAY. The fight that resulted was a gory reminder of the North Vietnamese
mastery of the ambush. The Communists quickly snared three U.S. companies
in their net. As the trapped units struggled for survival, nearly all semblance
of organized combat disappeared in the confusion and mayhem. Neither reinforcements
nor effective firepower could be brought in. At times combat was reduced
to valiant efforts by individuals and small units to avert annihilation.
When the fighting ended that night, 60 percent of the Americans were casualties,
and almost one of every three soldiers in the battalion had been killed.

Lauded as the first major American triumph of the Vietnam War, the battle
of the Ia Drang valley was in truth a costly and problematic victory. The
airmobile division, committed to combat less than a month after it arrived
in-country, relentlessly pursued the enemy for thirty-five days over difficult
terrain and defeated three NVA regiments. In part, its achievements underlined
the flexibility that Army divisions had gained in the early 1960's under
the Reorganization Objective Army Division (ROAD) concept. Replacing the
pentomic division with its five lightly armed battle groups, the ROAD division,
organized around three brigades, facilitated the creation of brigade and
battalion task forces tailored to respond and fight in a variety of military
situations. The newly organized division reflected the Army's embrace of
the concept of flexible response and proved eminently suitable for operations
in Vietnam. The helicopter was given great credit as well. Nearly every
aspect of the division's operations was enhanced by its airmobile capacity.
Artillery batteries were moved sixty-seven times by helicopter. Intelligence,
medical, and all manner of logistical support benefited as well from the
speed and flexibility provided by helicopters. Despite the fluidity of
the tactical situation, airmobile command and control procedures enabled
the division to move and to keep track of its units over a large area,
and to accommodate the frequent and rapid changes in command arrangements
as units were moved from one headquarters to another.

659

Yet for all the advantages that the division accrued from airmobility,
its performance was not without blemish. Though the conduct of division-size
airmobile operations proved tactically sound, two major engagements stemmed
from the enemy's initiative in attacking vulnerable American units. On
several occasions massive air and artillery support provided the margin
of victory (if not survival). Above all, the division's logistical self-sufficiency
fell short of expectations. It could support only one brigade in combat
at a time, for prolonged and intense operations consumed more fuel and
ammunition than the division's helicopters and fixed-wing Caribou aircraft
could supply. Air Force tactical airlift became necessary for resupply.
Moreover, in addition to combat losses and damage, the division's helicopters
suffered from heavy use and from the heat, humidity, and dust of Vietnam,
taxing its maintenance capacity. Human attrition was also high; hundreds
of soldiers, the equivalent of almost a battalion, fell victim to a resistant
strain of malaria peculiar to Vietnam's highlands.

Westmoreland's satisfaction in blunting the enemy's offensive was tempered
by concern that enemy forces might re-enter South Vietnam and resume their
offensive while the airmobile division recuperated at the end of November
and during most of December. He thus requested immediate reinforcements
from the Army's With Infantry Division, based in Hawaii and scheduled to
deploy to South Vietnam in the spring of 1966. By the end of 1965, the
division's 3d Brigade had been airlifted to the highlands and, within a
month of its arrival, had joined elements of the 1st Cavalry Division to
launch a series of operations to screen the border. Army units did not
detect any major enemy forces trying to cross from Cambodia into South
Vietnam. Each operation, however, killed hundreds of enemy soldiers and
refined airmobile techniques, as Army units learned to cope with the vast
territorial expanse and difficult terrain of the highlands.

In Operation MATADOR, for example, air strikes were used to blast holes
in the forests, enabling helicopters to bring in heavy engineer equipment
to construct new landing zones for use in future operations. Operation
LINCOLN, a search and destroy operation on the Chu Pong Massif, featured
combined armor and airmobile operations; air cavalry scouts guided armored
vehicles of the 3d Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, as they operated in
a lightly wooded area near Pleiku City. Also in LINCOLN, Army engineers,
using heli-lifted equipment, in two days cleared and constructed a runway
to handle C-130 air transports in an area inaccessible by road.

Despite the relative calm that followed the Ia Drang fighting, the North
Vietnamese left no doubt of their intent to continue infiltration and to
challenge American forces along the highland border. In February 1966

660

enemy forces overran the Special Forces camp at A Shau, in the remote
northwest corner of I Corps. The loss of the camp had long-term consequences,
enabling the enemy to make the A Shau valley a major logistical base and
staging area for forces infiltrating into the Piedmont and coastal areas.
The loss also highlighted certain differences between operational concepts
of the Army and the marines. Concentrating their efforts in the coastal
districts of I Corps and lacking the more extensive helicopter support
enjoyed by Army units, the marines avoided operations in the highlands.
On the other hand, Army commanders in II Corps sought to engage the enemy
as close to the border as possible and were quick to respond to threats
to Special Forces camps in the highlands. Operations near the border were
essential to Westmoreland's efforts to keep main force enemy units as far
as possible from heavily populated areas.

For Hanoi's strategists, however, a reciprocal relation existed between
highlands and coastal regions. Here, as in the south, the enemy directed
his efforts to preserving his own influence among the population near the
coast, from which he derived considerable support. At the same time, he
maintained a constant military threat in the highlands to divert allied
forces from

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efforts at pacification. Like the chronic shifting of units from the
neighborhood of Saigon to the war zones in III Corps, the frequent movement
of American units between coast and border in II Corps reflected the Communist
desire to relieve allied military pressure whenever guerrilla and local
forces were endangered. In its broad outlines, Hanoi's strategy to cope
with U.S. forces was the same employed by the Viet Minh against the French
and by Communist forces in 1964 and 1965 against the South Vietnamese Army.
Whether it would be equally successful remained to be seen.

The airmobile division spent the better part of the next two years fighting
Viet Cong and NVA main force units in the coastal plain and Piedmont valleys
of Binh Dinh Province. Here the enemy had deep roots, while pacification
efforts were almost dead. Starting in early 1966, the 1st Cavalry Division
embarked on a series of operations against the ad Viet Cong and
the `8th and Id North Vietnamese Regiments of the 3d North
Vietnamese Division (the Yellow Star Division). For the most
part, the 1st Cavalry Division operated in the Bong Son plain and the adjacent
hills, from which enemy units reinforced the hamlet and village guerrillas
who gathered in taxes, food, and recruits. As in the highlands, the division
exploited its airmobility, using helicopters to establish positions in
the upper reaches of the valleys. They sought to flush the enemy from his
hiding places and drive him toward the coast, where American, South Vietnamese,
and South Korean forces held blocking positions. When trapped, the enemy
was attacked by ground, naval, and air fire. The scheme was a new version
of an old tactical concept, the "hammer and anvil," with the coastal plain
and the natural barrier formed by the South China Sea forming the anvil
or killing zone. Collectively the operations became known as the Binh Dinh
Pacification Campaign.

For forty-two days elements of the airmobile division scoured the An
Lao and Kim Son valleys, pursuing enemy units that had been surprised and
routed from the Bong Son plain. Meanwhile, Marine forces in neighboring
Quang Ngai Province in southern I Corps sought to bar the enemy's escape
routes to the north. The enemy units evaded the Americans, but thousands
of civilians fled from the Viet Cong-dominated valleys to government-controlled
areas. Although the influx of refugees taxed the government's already strained
relief services, the exodus of peasants weakened the Viet Cong's infrastructure
and aimed a psychological blow at the enemy's prestige. The Communists
had failed either to confront the Americans or to protect the population
over which they had gained control.

Failing to locate the fleeing enemy in the An Lao valley, units of the
airmobile division assaulted another enemy base area, a group of valleys
and ridges southwest of the Bong Son plain known as the Crow's Foot or
the Eagle's Claw. Here some Army units sought to dislodge the enemy from
his

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upland bases while others established blocking positions at the "toe"
of each valley, where it found outlet to the plain. In six weeks over 1,300
enemy soldiers were killed. Enemy forces in northern Binh Dinh Province
were temporarily thrown off balance. Beyond this, the long-term effects
of the operation were unclear. The 1st Cavalry Division did not stay in
one area long enough to exploit its success. Whether the Saigon government
could marshal its forces effectively to provide local security and to reassert
its political control remained to be seen.

Later operations continued to harass an elusive foe. Launching a new
attack without the extensive preparatory reconnaissance that often alerted
the enemy, Army units again surprised him in the Bong Son area but soon
lost contact. The next move was against an enemy build-up in the vicinity
of the Vinh Thanh Special Forces Camp. Here the Green Berets watched the
"Oregon Trail," an enemy infiltration corridor that passed through the
Vinh Thanh valley from the highlands to the coast. Forestalling the attack,
Army units remained in the area where they conducted numerous patrols and
made frequent contact with the enemy. (One U.S. company came close to being
overrun in a ferocious firelight.)) But again the action had little enduring
effect, except to increase the enemy's caution by demonstrating the airmobile
division's agility in responding to a threat.

After a brief interlude in the highlands, the division returned to Binh
Dinh Province in September 1966. Conditions in the Bong Son area differed
little from those the division had first encountered. For the most part,
the Viet Cong rather than the Saigon government had been successful in
reasserting their authority, and pacification was at a standstill. The
division devoted most of its resources for the remainder of 1966 and throughout
1967 to supporting renewed efforts at pacification. In the fall of 1966,
for the first time in a year, all three of the division's brigades were
reunited and operating in Binh Dinh Province. Although elements of the
division were occasionally transferred to the highlands as the threat there
waxed and waned, the general movement of forces was toward the north. Army
units increasingly were sent to southern I Corps during 1967, replacing
Marine units in operations similar to those in Binh Dinh Province.

In one such operation the familiar pattern of hammer and anvil was tried
anew, with some success. The 1st Cavalry Division opened with a multibattalion
air assault in an upland valley to flush the enemy toward the coast, where
allied ground and naval forces were prepared to bar his escape. Enemy forces
had recently left their mountain bases to plunder the rice harvest and
to harass South Vietnamese forces providing security for provincial elections.
These units were caught with their backs to the sea. For most of October,
allied forces sought to destroy the main body of a Communist regiment

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isolated on the coast and to seize an enemy base in the nearby Phu Cat
Mountain. The first phase consisted of several sharp combat actions near
the coastal hamlet of Hoa Hoi. With South Vietnamese and U.S. naval forces
blocking an escape by sea, the encircled enemy fought desperately to return
to the safety of his bases in the upland valleys. His plight was compounded
when floods forced his troops out of their hiding places and exposed them
to attacks. After heavy losses, remnants of the regiment divided into small
parties that escaped through allied lines. As contacts with the enemy diminished
on the coast, American efforts shifted inland, with several sharp engagements
occurring when enemy forces tried to delay pursuit or to divert the allies
from entering base areas. By the end of October, as the Communists retreated
north and west, the running fight had accounted for over 2,000 enemy killed.
Large caches of supplies, equipment, and food were uncovered, and the Viet
Cong's shadow government in some coastal hamlets and villages was severely
damaged, some hamlets reverting to government control for the first time
in several years.

Similar operations continued through 1967 and into early 1968. In addition
to offensive operations against enemy main forces, Army units in Binh Dinh
worked in close co-ordination with South Vietnamese police, Regional and
Popular Forces, and the South Vietnamese Army to help the Saigon government
gain a foothold in villages and hamlets dominated or contested by the Communists.
The 1st Cavalry Division adopted a number of techniques in support of pacification.
Army units frequently participated in cordon and search operations: airmobile
forces seized positions around a hamlet or village at dawn to prevent the
escape of local forces or cadres, while South Vietnamese authorities undertook
a methodical house-to-house search. The Vietnamese checked the legal status
of residents, took a census, and interrogated suspected Viet Cong to obtain
more information about the enemy's local political and military apparatus.
At the same time, allied forces engaged in a variety of civic action and
psychological operations; specially trained pacification cadres established
the rudiments of local government and provided various social and economic
services. At other times, the division might participate in "checkpoint
and snatch" operations, establishing surprise roadblocks and inspecting
traffic on roads frequented by the insurgents.

Although much weakened by such methods, enemy forces found opportunities
to attack American units. They aimed both to win a military victory and
to remind the local populace of their presence and power. An attack on
Landing Zone BIRD, an artillery base on the Bong Son plain, was one such
example. Taking advantage of the Christmas truce of 1966, enemy units moved
into position and mounted a ferocious attack as soon as the truce ended.
Although portions of the base were overrun, the onslaught was

664

checked when artillerymen their guns and fired Beehive antipersonnel
rounds directly into the waves of oncoming enemy troops. Likewise, several
sharp firefights occurred immediately after the 1967 Tet truce,
when the enemy took advantage of the cease-fire to move back among the
population. This time units of the 1st Cavalry Division forced the enemy
to leave the coastal communities and seek refuge in the Piedmont. As the
enemy moved across the boundary into southern I Corps, so too did units
of the airmobile division. About a month later, the 3d Brigade, 25th Infantry
Division, also moved to southern I Corps. Throughout the remainder of 1967,
other Army units transferred to either I Corps to reinforce the marines
or to the highlands to meet renewed enemy threats. As the strength of American
units committed to the Binh Dinh Pacification Campaign decreased during
late 1967 and early 1968, enemy activity in the province quickened as the
Viet Cong sought to reconstitute their weakened military forces and to
regain a position of influence among the local population.

In many respects, the Binh Dinh campaign was a microcosm of Westmoreland's
over-all campaign strategy. It showed clearly the intimate relation between
the war against enemy main force units and the fight for pacification waged
by the South Vietnamese, and it demonstrated the effectiveness of the airmobile
concept. After two years of persistent pursuit of the NVA's Yellow Star
Division, the 1st Cavalry Division had reduced the combat effectiveness
of each of its three regiments. By the end of 1967, the threat to Binh
Dinh Province posed by enemy main force units had been markedly reduced.
The airmobile division's operations against the 3d North Vietnamese
Division, as well as its frequent role in operations directly in support
of pacification, had weakened local guerrilla forces and created an environment
favorable to pacification.

The campaign in Binh Dinh also exposed the vulnerabilities of Westmoreland's
campaign strategy. Despite repeated defeats at the hands of the Americans,
the three NVA regiments still existed. They contrived to find respite and
a measure of rehabilitation, building their strength anew with recruits
filtering down from the North, with others found in-country, and with Viet
Cong units consolidated into their ranks. Although much weakened, Communist
forces persistently returned to areas cleared by the 1st Cavalry Division.
Even more threatening to the allied cause, Saigon's pacification efforts
languished as South Vietnamese forces failed in many instances to provide
security to the villages and effective police action to root out local
Viet Cong cadres. And the government, dealing with a population already
skeptical, failed to grant the political, social, and economic benefits
it had promised.

665

The Highlands: Progress or Stalemate?

Moreover, the allies could not concentrate their efforts everywhere
as they had in strategic Binh Dinh. The expanse of the highlands compelled
Army operations there to be carried out with economy of force. During 1966
and 1967, the Americans engaged in a constant search for tactical concepts
and techniques to maximize their advantages of firepower and mobility and
to compensate for the constraints of time, distance, difficult terrain,
and an inviolable border. Here the war was fought primarily to prevent
the incursion of NVA units into South Vietnam and to erode their combat
strength. In the highlands, each side pursued a strategy of military confrontation,
seeking to weaken the fighting forces and will of its opponent through
attrition. Each sought military victories to convince opposing leaders
of the futility of continuing the contest. For the North Vietnamese, however,
confrontation in the highlands had the additional purpose of relieving
allied pressure in other areas, where pacification jeopardized their hold
on the rural population. Of all the factors influencing operations in the
highlands, the most significant may well have been the strength and success
of pacification elsewhere.

For Americans, the most difficult problem was to locate the enemy. Yet
Communist strategists sometimes created threats to draw in the Americans.

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Recurrent menaces to Special Forces camps reflected the enemy's seasonal
cycle of operations, his desire to harass and eliminate such camps, and
his hope of luring allied forces into situations where he held the military
advantages. Thus Army operations in the highlands during 1966 and 1967
were characterized by wide-ranging, often futile searches, punctuated by
sporadic but intense battles fought usually at the enemy's initiative.

For the first few months of 1966, the Communists lay low. In May, however,
a significant concentration of enemy forces appeared in Pleiku and Kontum
Provinces. The 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, the reserve of I Field
Force, was summoned to Pleiku and subsequently moved to Dak To, a CIDG
camp in northern Kontum Province, to assist a besieged South Vietnamese
force at the nearby government post at Toumorong. Although the 24th
North Vietnamese Regiment had surrounded Toumorong, allied forces secured
the road to Dak To and evacuated the government troops, leaving one battalion
of the 101st inside the abandoned camp and one company in an exposed defensive
position in the jungle a short distance beyond. On the night of 6 June
a large North Vietnamese force launched repeated assaults on this lone
company. Facing disaster, the commander called in air strikes on his own
position to stop the enemy's human-wave attacks. Relief arrived the next
morning, as additional elements of the brigade were heli-lifted to the
battlefield to pursue and trap the North Vietnamese. Fighting to close
off the enemy's escape routes, the Americans called in renewed air strikes,
including B-52's. By 20 June enemy resistance had ended, and the NVA regiment
that had begun the fighting, leaving behind dead, escaped to the safety
of its Laotian base.

Although the enemy's push in Kontum Province was blunted, the siege
of Toumorong was only one aspect of his summer offensive in the highlands.
Suspecting that NVA forces meant to return to the Ia Drang, Westmoreland
sent the 3d Brigade, With Infantry Division, back into the valley in May.
Dividing the area into "checkerboard" squares, the brigade methodically
searched each square. Small patrols set out ambushes and operated for several
days without resupply to avoid having helicopters reveal their location.
After several days in one square, the patrols leapfrogged by helicopter
to another. Though the Americans made only light, sporadic contacts, the
cumulative toll of enemy killed was equal to many short, violent battles.
One significant contact was made in late May near the Chu Pong Massif.
A running battle ensued, as the enemy again sought safety in Cambodia.
Westmoreland now appealed to Washington for permission to maneuver Army
units behind the enemy, possibly into Cambodian territory. But officials
refused, fearing international repercussions, and the NVA sanctuary remained
inviolate.

667

Yet the operation confirmed that sizable enemy forces had returned to
South Vietnam and, as in the fall of 1965, were threatening the outposts
at Plei Me and Duc Co. To meet the renewed threat, I Field Force sent additional
Army units to Pleiku Province and launched a new operation under the 1st
Cavalry Division. The action followed the now familiar pattern of extensive
heli-lifts, establishment of patrol bases, and intermittent contact with
an enemy who usually avoided American forces. When the Communists elected
to fight, they preferred to occupy high ground; dislodging them from hilltop
bunkers was a difficult task, requiring massive air and artillery support.
By the time the enemy left Pleiku again at the end of August, his forces
had incurred nearly 500 deaths.

Border battles continued, however, and some were sharp. When enemy forces
appeared in strength around a CIDG camp at Plei Djering in October, elements
of the 4th Infantry and 1st Cavalry Divisions rapidly reinforced the camp,
clashing with the enemy in firefights during October and November. As North
Vietnamese forces began to withdraw through the Plei Trap valley, the 1st
Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, was airlifted from Phu Yen to northern
Kontum to try to block their escape, but failed to trap them before they
reached the border. Army operations in the highlands were continued by
the 4th Infantry Division. In addition to screening the border to detect
infiltration, the division constructed a new road between Pleiku and the
highland outpost at Plei Djering and helped the Saigon government resettle
thousands of Montagnards in secure camps. Contact with the enemy generally
was light, the heaviest occurring in mid-February 1967, in an area west
of the Nam Sathay River near the Cambodian border, when Communist forces
unsuccessfully tried to overrun several American fire bases. Despite infrequent
contacts, however, 4th Division troops killed 700 enemy over a period of
three months.

In I Corps as well, the enemy seemed intent on dispersing American forces
to the border regions. Heightened activity along the demilitarized zone
drew marines from southern I Corps. To replace them, Army units were transferred
from III and II Corps to the area vacated by the marines, among them the
196th Infantry Brigade, which was pulled out of Operation JUNCTION CITY,
and the 3d Brigade, With Infantry Division, which had been operating in
the II Corps Zone. Together with the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division,
these units formed Task Force OREGON, activated on 12 April 1967 and placed
under the operational control of the III Marine Amphibious Force. Army
infantry units were now operating in all four of South Vietnam's corps
areas.

668

Once at Chu Lai, the Army forces supported an extensive South Vietnamese
pacification effort in Quang Tin Province. To the north, along the demilitarized
zone, Army heavy artillery engaged in almost daily duels with NVA guns
to the north. In Quang Tri Province, the marines fought a hard twelve-day
battle to prevent NVA forces from dominating the hills surrounding Khe
Sanh. The enemy's heightened military activity along the demilitarized
zone, which included frontal attacks across it, prompted American officials
to begin construction of a barrier consisting of highly sophisticated electronic
and acoustical sensors and strong point defenses manned by allied forces.
Known as the McNamara Line, after Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara,
who vigorously promoted the concept, the barrier was to extend across South
Vietnam and eventually into Laos. Westmoreland was not enthusiastic about
the project, for he hesitated to commit large numbers of troops to man
the strongpoints and doubted that the barrier would prevent the enemy from
breaching the demilitarized zone. Hence the McNamara Line was never completed.

Throughout the summer of 1967, Marine forces endured some of the most
intense enemy artillery barrages of the war and fought several battles
with NVA units that infiltrated across the I7th parallel. Their stubborn
defense, supported by massive counterbattery fire, naval gunfire, and air
attacks, ended the enemy's offensive in northern I Corps, but not before
Westmoreland had to divert additional Army units as reinforcements. A brigade
of the 1st Cavalry Division and South Korean units were deployed to southern
I Corps to replace additional marines who had been shifted further north.
The depth of the Army's commitment in I Corps was shown by Task Force OREGON'S
reorganization as the 23d Infantry Division (Americal). The only Army division
to be formed in South Vietnam, its name echoed a famous division of World
War II that had also been organized in the Pacific. If the enemy's aim
was to draw American forces to the north, he evidently was succeeding.

Even as Westmoreland shifted allied forces from II Corps to I Corps,
fighting intensified in the highlands. After Army units made several contacts
with enemy forces during May and June, Westmoreland moved the 173d Airborne
Brigade from III Corps to II Corps to serve as the I Field Force's strategic
reserve. Within a few days, however, the brigade was committed to an effort
to forestall enemy attacks against the CIDG camps of Dak To, Dak Seang,
and Dak Pek in northern Kontum Province. Under the control of the 4th Infantry
Division, the operation continued throughout the summer until the enemy
threat abated. A few months later, however, reconnaissance patrols in the
vicinity of Dak To detected a rapid and substantial build-up of enemy

669

forces in regimental strength. Believing an attack to be imminent, 4th
Infantry Division forces reinforced the garrison. In turn, the 173d Airborne
Brigade returned to the highlands, arriving on 2 November. From 3 to 15
November enemy forces estimated to number 12,000 probed, harassed, and
attacked American and South Vietnamese positions along the ridges and hills
surrounding the camp. As the attacks grew stronger, more U.S. and South
Vietnamese reinforcements were sent, including two battalions from the
airmobile division and six ARVN battalions. By mid-November allied strength
approached 8,000.

Despite daily air and artillery bombardments of their positions, the
North Vietnamese launched two attacks against Dak To on 15 November, destroying
two C-130 aircraft and causing severe damage to the camp's ammunition dump.
Allied forces strove to dislodge the enemy from the surrounding hills,
but the North Vietnamese held fast in fortified positions. The center of
enemy resistance was Hill 875; here, two battalions of the 173d Airborne
Brigade made a slow and painful ascent against determined resistance and
under grueling physical conditions, fighting for every foot of ground.
Enemy fire was so intense and accurate that at times the Americans were
unable to bring in reinforcements by helicopter or to provide fire support.
In fighting that resembled the hill battles of the final stage of the Korean
War, the confusion at Dak To pitted soldier against soldier in classic
infantry battle. In desperation, beleaguered U.S. commanders on Hill 875
called in artillery and even B-52 air strikes at perilously close range
to their own positions. On 17 November American forces at last gained control
of Hill 875.

The battle of Dak To was the longest and most violent in the highlands
since the battle of the Ia Drang two years before. Enemy casualties numbered
in the thousands, with an estimated 1,400 killed. Americans had suffered
too. Approximately one-fifth of the 173d Airborne Brigade had become casualties,
with 174 killed, 642 wounded, and 17 missing in action. If the battle of
the Ia Drang exemplified airmobility in all its versatility, the battle
of Dak To, with the arduous ascent of Hill 875, epitomized infantry combat
at its most basic and the crushing effect of supporting air power.

Yet Dak To was only one of several border battles in the waning months
of 1967. At Song Be and Loc Ninh in III Corps, and all along the northern
border of I Corps, the enemy exposed his positions in order to confront
U.S. forces in heavy fighting. By the end of 1967 the 1st Infantry Division
had again concentrated near the Cambodian border, and the With Infantry
Division had returned to War Zone C. The enemy's threat in I Corps caused
Westmoreland to disperse more Army units. In the vacuum left by their

670

departure, local Viet Cong sought to reconstitute their forces and to
reassert their control over the rural population. In turn, Viet Cong revival
often was a prelude to the resurgence of Communist military activity at
the district and village level. Hard pressed to find additional Army units
to shift from III Corps and II Corps to I Corps, Westmoreland asked the
Army to accelerate deployment of two remaining brigades of the 101st Airborne
Division from the United States. Arriving in December 1967, the brigades
were added to the growing number of Army units operating in the northern
provinces.

While allied forces were under pressure, the border battles of 1967
also led to a reassessment of strategy in Hanoi. Undeviating in their long-term
aim of unification, the leaders of North Vietnam recognized that their
strategy of military confrontation had failed to stop the American military
buildup in the South or to reduce U.S. military pressure on the North.
The enemy's regular and main force units had failed to inflict a salient
military defeat on American forces. Although the North Vietnamese Army
maintained the tactical initiative, Westmoreland had kept its units at
bay and in some areas, like Binh Dinh Province, diminished their influence
on the contest for control of the rural population. Many Communist military
leaders perceived the war to be a stalemate and thought that continuing
on their present course would bring diminishing returns, especially if
their local forces were drastically weakened.

On the other side, Westmoreland could rightly point to some modest progress
in improving South Vietnam's security and to punishing defeats inflicted
on several NVA regiments and divisions. Yet none of his successes were
sufficient to turn the tide of the war. The Communists had matched the
build-up of American combat forces, the number of enemy divisions in the
South increasing from one in early 1965 to nine at the start of 1968. Against
320 allied combat battalions, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong could
marshal 240. Despite heavy air attacks against enemy lines of infiltration,
the flow of men from the North had continued unabated, even increasing
toward the end of 1967.

Although the Military Assistance Command had succeeded in warding off
defeat in 1965 and had gained valuable time for the South Vietnamese to
concentrate their political and military resources on pacification, security
in many areas of South Vietnam had improved little. Americans noted that
the Viet Cong, in one district within artillery range of Saigon, rarely
had any unit as large as a company. Yet, relying on booby traps, mines,
and local guerrillas, they tied up over 6,000 American and South Vietnamese
troops. More and more, success in the South seemed to depend not only on
Westmoreland's ability to hold off and weaken enemy main force units, but
on the

671

equally important efforts of the South Vietnamese Army, the Regional
and the Popular Forces, and a variety of paramilitary and police forces
to pacify the countryside. Writing to President Johnson in the spring of
1967, outgoing Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge warned that if the South Vietnamese
"dribble along and do not take advantage of the success which MACV has
achieved against the main force and the Army of North Viet-Nam, we must
expect that the enemy will lick his wounds, pull himself together and make
another attack in '68." Westmoreland's achievements, he added, would be
"judged not so much on the brilliant performance of the U.S. troops as
on the success in getting ARVN, RF and PF quickly to function as a first-class
. . . counter-guerrilla force." Meanwhile the war appeared to be in a state
of equilibrium. Only an extraordinary effort by one side or the other could
bring a decision.

The Tet Offensive

The Tet offensive marked a unique stage in the evolution of North
Vietnam's People's War. Hanoi's solution to the stalemate in the South
was the product of several factors. North Vietnam's large unit war was
unequal to the task of defeating American combat units. South Vietnam was
becoming politically and militarily stronger, while the Viet Cong's grip
over the rural population eroded. Hanoi's leaders suspected that the United
States, frustrated by the slow pace of progress, might intensify its military
operations against the North. (Indeed, Westmoreland had broached plans
for an invasion of the North when he appealed for additional forces in
1967.) The Tet offensive was a brilliant stroke of strategy by Hanoi,
designed to change the arena of war from the battlefield to the negotiating
table, and from a strategy of military confrontation to one of talking
and fighting.

Communist plans called for violent, widespread, simultaneous military
actions in rural and urban areas throughout the South—a general offensive.
But as always, military action was subordinate to a larger political goal.
By focusing attacks on South Vietnamese units and facilities, Hanoi sought
to undermine the morale and will of Saigon's forces. Through a collapse
of military resistance, the North Vietnamese hoped to subvert public confidence
in the government's ability to provide security, triggering a crescendo
of popular protest to halt the fighting and force a political accommodation.
In short, they aimed at a general uprising.

Hanoi's generals, however, were not completely confident that the general
offensive would succeed. Viet Cong forces, hastily reinforced with new
recruits and part-time guerrillas, bore the brunt. Except in the northern
pro-

672

vinces, the North Vietnamese Army stayed on the sidelines, poised to
exploit success. While hoping to spur negotiations, Communist leaders probably
had the more modest goals of reasserting Viet Cong influence and undermining
Saigon's authority so as to cast doubt on its credibility as the United
States' ally. In this respect, the offensive was directed toward the United
States and sought to weaken American confidence in the Saigon government,
discredit Westmoreland's claims of progress, and strengthen American antiwar
sentiment. Here again, the larger purpose was to bring the United States
to the negotiating table and hasten American disengagement from Vietnam.

The Tet offensive began quietly in mid-January 1968 in the remote
northwest corner of South Vietnam. Elements of three NVA divisions began
to mass near the Marine base at Khe Sanh. At first the ominous proportions
of the build-up led the Military Assistance Command to expect a major offensive
in the northern provinces. To some observers the situation at Khe Sanh
resembled Dien Bien Phu, the isolated garrison where the Viet Minh had
defeated French forces in 1954. Khe Sanh, however, was a diversion, an
attempt to entice Westmoreland to defend yet another border post by withdrawing
forces from the populated areas of the South.

While pressure around Khe Sanh increased, 85,000 Communist troops prepared
for the Tet offensive. Since the fall of 1967, the enemy had been
infiltrating arms, ammunition, and men, including entire units, into Saigon
and other cities and towns. Most of these meticulous preparations went
undetected, although MACV received warnings of a major enemy action to
take place in early 1968. The command did pull some Army units closer to
Saigon just before the attack. However, concern over the critical situation
at Khe Sanh and preparations for the Tet holiday festivities preoccupied
most Americans and South Vietnamese. Even when Communist forces prematurely
attacked Kontum, Qui Nhon, Da Nang, and other towns in the northern and
central provinces on 29 January, Americans were unprepared for what followed.

673

On 31 January combat erupted throughout the entire country. Thirty-six
of 44 provincial capitals and 64 of 242 district towns were attacked, as
well as 5 of South Vietnam's 6 autonomous cities, among them Hue and Saigon.
Once the shock and confusion wore off, most attacks were crushed in a few
days. During those few days, however, the fighting was some of the most
violent ever seen in the South or experienced by many ARVN units. Though
the South Vietnamese were the main target, American units were swept into
the turmoil. All Army units in the vicinity of Saigon helped to repel Viet
Cong attacks there and at the nearby logistical base of Long Binh. In some
American compounds, cooks, radiomen, and clerks took up arms in their own
defense. Military police units helped root the Viet Cong out of Saigon,
and Army helicopter gunships were in the air almost continuously, assisting
the allied forces.

The most tenacious combat occurred in Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam,
where the 1st Cavalry and 101st Airborne Divisions, together with marines
and South Vietnamese forces, participated in the only extended urban combat
of the war. Hue had a tradition of Buddhist activism, with overtones of
neutralism, separatism, and anti-Americanism, and Hanoi's strategists thought
that here if anywhere the general offensive-general uprising might gain
a political foothold. Hence they threw North Vietnamese regulars into the
battle, indicating that the stakes at Hue were higher than elsewhere in
the South. House-to-house and street-to-street fighting caused enormous
destruction, necessitating massive reconstruction and community assistance
programs after the battle. The allies took three weeks to recapture the
city. The slow, hard-won gains of 1967 vanished overnight as South Vietnamese
and Marine forces were pulled out of the countryside to reinforce the city.

Yet throughout the country the South Vietnamese forces acquitted themselves
well, despite high casualties and many desertions. Stunned by the attacks,
civilian support for the Thieu government coalesced instead of weakening.
Many Vietnamese for whom the war had been an unpleasant abstraction were
outraged. Capitalizing on the new feeling, South Vietnam's leaders for
the first time dared to enact general mobilization. The change from grudging
toleration of the Viet Cong to active resistance provided an opportunity
to create new local defense organizations and to attack the Communist infrastructure.
Spurred by American advisers, the Vietnamese began to revitalize pacification.
Most important, the Viet Cong suffered a major military defeat, losing
thousands of experienced combatants and seasoned political cadres, seriously
weakening the insurgent base in the South.

Americans at home saw a different picture. Dramatic images of the Viet

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Cong storming the American Embassy in the heart of Saigon and the North
Vietnamese Army clinging tenaciously to Hue obscured Westmoreland's assertion
that the enemy had been defeated. Claims of progress in the war, already
greeted with skepticism, lost more credibility in both public and official
circles. The psychological jolt to President Johnson's Vietnam policy was
redoubled when the military requested an additional 206,00 troops. Most
were intended to reconstitute the strategic reserve in the United States,
exhausted by Westmoreland's appeals for combat units between 1965 and 1967.
But the magnitude of the new request, at a time when almost a half-million
U.S. troops were already in Vietnam, cast doubts on the conduct of the
war and prompted a reassessment of American policy and strategy.

Without mobilization, the United States was overcommitted. The Army
could send few additional combat units to Vietnam without making deep inroads
on forces destined for NATO or South Korea. The dwindling strategic reserve
left Johnson with fewer options in the spring of 1968 than in the summer
of 1965. His problems were underscored by heightened international tensions
when North Korea captured an American naval vessel, the USS Pueblo,
a week before the Tet offensive; by Soviet armed intervention
in Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1968; and by chronic crises in the Mideast.
In addition, Army units in the United States were needed often between
1965 and 1968 to enforce federal civil rights legislation and to restore
public order in the wake of civil disturbances.

Again, as in 1967, Johnson refused to sanction a major troop levy, but
he did give Westmoreland some modest reinforcements to bolster the northern
provinces. Again tapping the strategic reserve, the Army sent him the 3d
Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, and the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division
(Mechanized)—the last Army combat units to deploy to South Vietnam. In
addition, the President called to active duty a small number of Reserve
units, totaling some 40,000 men, for duty in Southeast Asia and South Korea,
the only use of Reserves during the Vietnam War. For Westmoreland, Johnson's
decision meant that future operations would have to make the best possible
use of American forces, and that the South Vietnamese Army would have to
shoulder a larger share of the war effort. The President also curtailed
air strikes against North Vietnam to spur negotiations. Finally, on 31
March Johnson announced his decision not to seek reselection in order to
give his full attention to the goal of resolving the conflict. Hanoi had
suffered a military defeat, but had won a political and diplomatic victory
by shifting American policy toward disengagement.

For the Army the new policy meant a difficult time. In South Vietnam,
as in the United States, its forces were stretched thin. The Tet offensive
had

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concentrated a large portion of the combat forces in I Corps, once a
Marine preserve. A new command, the XXIV Corps, had to be activated at
Da Nang, and Army logistical support, previously confined to the three
southern corps zones, extended to the five northern provinces as well.
While Army units reinforced Hue and the demilitarized zone, the marines
at Khe Sanh held fast. Enemy pressure on the besieged base increased daily,
but the North Vietnamese refrained from an all-out attack, still hoping
to divert American forces from Hue. Recognizing that he could ill afford
Khe Sanh's defense, Westmoreland decided to subject the enemy to the heaviest
air and artillery bombardment of the war. His tactical gamble succeeded;
the enemy withdrew, and the Communist offensive slackened.

The enemy nevertheless persisted in his effort to weaken the Saigon
government, launching nationwide "mini-Tet" offensives in May and August.Pockets of heavy fighting occurred throughout the south, and Viet Cong
forces again tried to infiltrate into Saigon—the last gasps of the general
offensive-general uprising. Thereafter enemy forces generally dispersed
and avoided contact with Americans. In turn, the allies withdrew from Khe
Sanh itself in the summer of 1968. Its abandonment signaled the demise
of the McNamara Line and further postponement of MACV's hopes for large-scale
American cross-border operations. For the remainder of 1968, Army units
in I Corps were content to help restore security around Hue and other coastal
areas, working closely with the marines and the South Vietnamese in support
of pacification. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces generally avoided
offensive operations. As armistice negotiations began in Paris, both sides
prepared to enter a new phase of the war.

Vietnamization

The last phase of American involvement in South Vietnam was carried
out under a broad policy called Vietnamization. Its main goal was to create
strong, largely self-reliant South Vietnamese military forces, an objective
consistent with that espoused by U.S. advisers as early as the 1950'S.
But Vietnamization also meant the withdrawal of a half-million American
soldiers. Past efforts to strengthen and modernize South Vietnam's Army
had proceeded at a measured pace, without the pressure of diminishing American
support, large-scale combat, or the presence of formidable North Vietnamese
forces in the South. Vietnamization entailed three overlapping phases:
redeployment of American forces and the assumption of their combat role
by the South Vietnamese; improvement of ARVN's combat and support capabilities,
especially firepower and mobility; and replacement of

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the Military Assistance Command by an American advisory group. Vietnamization
had the added dimension of fostering political, social, and economic reforms
to create a vibrant South Vietnamese state based on popular participation
in national political life. Such reforms, however, depended on progress
n the pacification program which never had a clearly fixed timetable.

The task of carrying out the military aspects of Vietnamization fell
to General Creighton W. Abrams, who succeeded General Westmoreland as MACV
commander in mid-1968, when the latter returned to the United States to
become Chief of Staff of the Army. Although he had the aura of a blunt,
hard-talking, World War II tank commander, Abrams had spent two years as
Westmoreland's deputy, working closely with South Vietnamese commanders.
Like Westmoreland before him, Abrams viewed the military situation after
Tet as an opportunity to make gains in pacifying rural areas and
to reduce the strength of Communist forces in the South. Until the weakened
Viet Cong forces could be rebuilt or replaced with NVA forces, both guerrilla
and regular Communist forces had adopted a defensive posture. Nevertheless,
90,000 NVA forces were in the South, or in border sanctuaries, waiting
to resume the offensive at a propitious time.

Abrams still had strong American forces; indeed, they reached their
peak strength of 543,000 in March 1969. But he was also under pressure
from Washington to minimize casualties and to conduct operations with an
eye toward leaving the South Vietnamese in the strongest possible military
position when U.S. forces withdrew. With these considerations in mind,
Abrams decided to disrupt and destroy the enemy's bases, especially those
near the border, to prevent their use as staging areas for offensive operations.
His primary objective was the enemy's logistical support system rather
than enemy main combat forces. At the same time, to enhance Saigon's pacification
efforts and improve local security, Abrams intended to emphasize small
unit operations, with extensive patrolling and ambushes, aiming to reduce
the enemy's base of support among the rural population.

To the greatest extent possible, he planned to improve ARVN's performance
by conducting combined operations with American combat units. As the South
Vietnamese Army assumed the lion's share of combat, it was expected to
shift operations to the border and to assume a role similar to that performed
by U.S. forces between 1965 and 1969. The Regional and Popular Forces,
in turn, were to take over ARVN's role in area security and pacification
support, while the newly organized People's Self-Defense Force took on
the task of village and hamlet defense. Stressing the close connection
between combat and pacification operations, the need for co-operation between
American and South Vietnamese forces, and the importance of co-ordinating
all echelons of Saigon's armed forces, Abrams propounded a "one war" concept.

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Yet even in his emphasis on combined operations and American support
of pacification, Abrams' strategy had strong elements of continuity with
Westmoreland's. For the first, operations in War Zones C and D in 1967
and the thrust into the A Shau valley in 1968 were ample precedents. Again,
Westmoreland had laid the foundation for a more extensive U.S. role in
pacification in 1967 by establishing Civil Operations Rural Development
Support (CORDS). Under CORDS, the Military Assistance Command took charge
of all American activities, military and civilian, in support of pacification.
Abrams' contribution was to enlarge the Army's role. Under him, the U.S.
advisory effort at provincial and district levels grew as the territorial
forces gained in importance, and additional advisers were assigned to the
Phoenix program, a concerted effort to eliminate the Communist political
apparatus. Numerous mobile advisory teams helped the South Vietnamese Army
and paramilitary forces to become adept in a variety of combat and support
functions.

Despite all efforts, many Americans doubted whether Saigon's armed forces
could successfully play their enlarged role under Vietnamization. Earlier
counterinsurgency efforts had languished under less demanding circumstances,
and Saigon's forces continued to be plagued with high desertions,

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spotty morale, and shortages of high quality leaders. Like the French
before them, U.S. advisers had assumed a major role in providing and co-ordinating
logistical and firepower support, leaving the Vietnamese inexperienced
in the conduct of large combined-arms operations. Despite the Viet Cong's
weakened condition, South Vietnamese forces also continued to incur high
casualties.

Similarly, pacification registered ostensible gains in rural security
and other measures of progress, but such improvements often obscured its
failure to establish deep roots. The Phoenix program, despite its success
in seizing low-level cadres, rarely caught hard-core, high-level party
officials, many of whom survived, as they had in the mid-1950's, by taking
more stringent security measures. Furthermore, the program was abused by
some South Vietnamese officials, who used it as a vehicle for personal
vendettas. Saigon's efforts at political, social, and economic reform likewise
were susceptible to corruption, venality, and nepotism. Temporary social
and economic benefits for the peasantry rested on an uncertain foundation
of continued American aid, as did South Vietnam's entire economy and war
effort.

Influencing all parts of the struggle was a new defense policy enunciated
by Richard M. Nixon, who became President in January 1969. The "Nixon Doctrine"
harkened back to the precepts of the New Look, placing greater reliance
on nuclear retaliation, encouraging allies to accept a larger share of
their own defense burden, and barring the use of U.S. ground forces in
limited wars in Asia, unless vital national interests were at stake. Under
this policy, American ground forces in South Vietnam, once withdrawn, were
unlikely to return. For President Thieu in Saigon, the future was inauspicious.
For the time being, large numbers of American forces were still present
to bolster his country's war effort; what would happen when they departed,
no one knew.

Military Operations, 1968-1969

Vietnamization began in earnest when two brigades of the U.S. Army's
9th Infantry Division left South Vietnam in July 1968, making the South
Vietnamese Army responsible for securing the southern approaches to Saigon.
The protective area that Westmoreland had developed around the capital
was still intact. Allied forces engaged in a corps-wide counteroffensive
to locate and destroy remnants of the enemy units that had participated
in the Tet offensive, combining thousands of small unit operations,
frequent sweeps through enemy bases, and persistent screening of the Cambodian
border to prevent enemy main force units from returning. As the Military

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Assistance Command anticipated, the Communists launched a Tet offensive
in 1969, but a much weaker one than a year earlier. Allied forces easily
suppressed the outbreaks. Meanwhile, in critical areas around Saigon pacification
had begun to take hold. Such signs of progress probably resulted mainly
from the attrition of Viet Cong forces during Tet 1968. But the
vigilant screening of the border contributed to the enemy's difficulty
in reaching and helping local insurgent forces.

Yet Saigon was not impregnable. With increasing frequency, enemy sappers
penetrated close enough to launch powerful rocket attacks against the capital.
Such incidents terrorized civilians, caused military casualties, and were
a violent reminder of the government's inability to protect the population.
Sometimes simultaneous attacks were conducted throughout the country. An
economy-of-force measure, the attacks brought little risk to the enemy
and compelled allied forces to suspend other tasks while they cleared the
"rocket belts" around every major urban center and base in the country.

In the Central Highlands the war of attrition continued. Until its redeployment
of 1970, the Army protected major highland population centers and kept
open important interior roads. Special Forces worked with the tribal highlanders
to detect infiltration and harass enemy secret zones. As in the past, highland
camps and outposts were a magnet for enemy attacks, meant to lure reaction
forces into an ambush or to divert the allies from operations elsewhere.
Ben Het in Kontum Province was besieged from March to July of 1969. Other
bases—Thien Phuoc and Thuong Duc in I Corps; Bu Prang, Dak Seang, and Dak
Pek in II Corps; and Katum, Bu Dop, and Tong Le Chon in III Corps—were
attacked because of their proximity to Communist strongholds and infiltration
routes. In some cases camps had to be abandoned, but in most the attackers
were repulsed. By the time the 5th Special Forces Group left South Vietnam
in March 1971, all CIDG units had been converted to Regional Forces or
absorbed by the South Vietnamese Rangers. The departure of the Green Berets
brought an end to any significant Army role in the highlands.

Following the withdrawal of the 4th and 9th Divisions, Army units concentrated
around Saigon and in the northern provinces. Operating in Quang Ngai, Quang
Tin, and Quang Nam Provinces, the 23d Infantry Division (Americal) conducted
a series of operations in 1968 and 1969 to secure and pacify the heavily
populated coastal plain of southern I Corps. Along the demilitarized zone,
the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized), helped marines and
South Vietnamese forces to screen the zone and to secure the northern coastal
region, including a stretch of highway, the "street without joy," that
was notorious from the time of the French. The

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101st Airborne Division (converted to the Army's second airmobile division
in 1968) divided its attention between the defense of Hue and forays into
the enemy's base in the A Shau valley.

Since the 1968 Tet offensive, the Communists had restocked the
A Shau valley with ammunition, rice, and equipment. The logistical build-up
pointed to a possible NVA offensive in early 1969. In quick succession,
Army operations were launched in the familiar pattern: air assaults, establishment
of fire support bases, and exploration of the lowlands and surrounding
hills to locate enemy forces and supplies. This time the Army met stiff
enemy resistance, especially from antiaircraft guns. The North Vietnamese
had expected the American forces and now planned to hold their ground.

On 11 May 1969, a battalion of the 101st Airborne Division climbing
Hill 937 found the 28th North Vietnamese Regiment waiting for it.
The struggle for "Hamburger Hill" raged for ten days and became one of
the war's fiercest and most controversial battles. Entrenched in tiers
of fortified bunkers with well-prepared fields of fire, the enemy forces
withstood repeated attempts to dislodge them. Supported by intense artillery
and air strikes, Americans made a slow, tortuous climb, fighting hand to
hand. By the time Hill 937 was taken, three Army battalions and an ARVN
regiment had been committed to the battle. Victory, however, was ambiguous
as well as costly; the hill itself had no strategic or tactical importance
and was abandoned soon after its capture. Critics charged that the battle
wasted American lives and exemplified the irrelevance of U.S. tactics in
Vietnam. Defending the operation, the commander of the 101st acknowledged
that the hill's only significance was that the enemy occupied it. "My mission,"
he said, "was to destroy enemy forces and installations. We found the enemy
on Hill 937, and that is where we fought them."

About one month later the 101st left the A Shau valley, and the North
Vietnamese were free to use it again. American plans to return in the summer
of 1970 came to nothing when enemy pressure forced the abandonment of two
fire support bases needed for operations there. The loss of Fire Support
Base O'REILLY, only eleven miles from Hue, was an ominous sign that enemy
forces had reoccupied the A Shau and were seeking to dominate the valleys
leading to the coastal plain. Until it redeployed in 1971, the 101st Airborne,
with the marines and South Vietnamese forces, now devoted most of its efforts
to protecting Hue. The operations against the A Shau had achieved no more
than Westmoreland's large search and destroy operations in 1967. As soon
as the allies left, the enemy reclaimed his traditional bases.

The futility of such operations was mirrored in events on the coastal
plain. Here the 23d Infantry Division fought in an area where the population

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had long been sympathetic to the Viet Cong. As in other areas, pacification
in southern I Corps seemed to improve after the 1968 Tet offensive,
though enemy units still dominated the Piedmont and continued to challenge
American and South Vietnamese forces on the coast. Operations against them
proved to be slow, frustrating exercises in warding off NVA and Viet Cong
main force units while enduring harassment from local guerrillas and the
hostile population. Except during spasms of intense combat, as in the summer
of 1969 when the Americal Division confronted the 1st
North Vietnamese Regiment, most U.S. casualties were caused
by snipers, mines, and booby traps. Villages populated by old men, women,
and children were as dangerous as the elusive enemy main force units. Operating
in such conditions day after day induced a climate of fear and hate among
the Americans. The already thin line between civilian and combatant was
easily blurred and violated. In the hamlet of My Lai, elements of the Americal
Division killed about two hundred civilians in the spring of 1968. Although
only one member of the division was tried and found guilty of war crimes,
the repercussions of the atrocity were felt throughout the Army. However
rare, such acts undid the benefit of countless hours of civic action by
Army units and individual soldiers and raised unsettling questions about
the conduct of the war.

What happened at My Lai could have occurred in any Army unit in Vietnam
in the late 1960's and early 1970's. War crimes were born of a sense of
frustration that also contributed to a host of morale and discipline problems,
among enlisted men and officers alike. As American forces were withdrawn
by a government eager to escape the war, the lack of a clear military objective
contributed to a weakened sense of mission and a slackening of discipline.
The short-timer syndrome, the reluctance to take risks in combat toward
the end of a soldier's one-year tour, was compounded by the "last-casualty"
syndrome. Knowing that all U.S. troops would soon leave Vietnam, no soldier
wanted to be the last to die. Meanwhile, in the United States harsh criticism
of the war, the military, and traditional military values had become widespread.
Heightened individualism, growing permissiveness, and a weakening of traditional
bonds of authority pervaded American society and affected the Army's rank
and file. The Army grappled with problems of drug abuse, racial tensions,
weakened discipline, and lapses of leadership. While outright refusals
to fight were few in number, incidents of "fragging"— murderous attacks
on officers and noncoms—occurred frequently enough to compel commands to
institute a host of new security measures within their cantonments. All
these problems were symptoms of larger social and political forces and
underlined a growing disenchantment with the war among soldiers in the
field.

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As the Army prepared to leave Vietnam, lassitude and war-weariness at
times resulted in tragedy, as at Fire Support Base MARY ANN in 1971. There
soldiers of the Americal Division, soon to go home, relaxed their security
and were overrun by a North Vietnamese force. Such incidents reflected
a decline in the quality of leadership among both noncommissioned and commissioned
officers. Lowered standards, abbreviated training, and accelerated promotions
to meet the high demand for noncommissioned and junior officers often resulted
in the assignment of squad, platoon, and company leaders with less combat
experience than the troops they led. Careerism and ticket-punching in officer
assignments, false reporting and inflated body counts, and revelations
of scandal and corruption all raised disquieting questions about the professional
ethics of Army leadership. Critics indicted the tactics and techniques
used by the Army in Vietnam, noting that airmobility, for example, tended
to distance troops from the population they were sent to protect and that
commanders aloft in their command and control helicopters were at a psychological
and physical distance from the soldiers they were supposed to lead.

Cross-border Operations

With most U.S. combat units slated to leave South Vietnam during 1970
and 1971, time was a critical factor for the success of Vietnamization
and pacification. Neither program could thrive if Saigon's forces were
distracted by enemy offensives launched from bases in Laos or Cambodia.
While Abrams' logistical offensive temporarily reduced the level of enemy
activity in the South, bases outside South Vietnam had been inviolable
to allied ground forces. Harboring enemy forces, command facilities, and
logistical depots, the Cambodian and Laotian bases threatened the fragile
progress made in the South since Tet 1968. To the Nixon administration,
Abrams' plans to violate the Communist sanctuaries had the special appeal
of gaining more time for Vietnamization and of compensating for the bombing
halt over North Vietnam.

Because of their proximity to Saigon, the bases in Cambodia received
first priority. Planning for the cross-border attack occurred at a critical
time in Cambodia. In early 1970 Cambodia's neutralist leader, Prince Norodom
Sihanouk, was overthrown by his pro-Western Defense Minister, General Lon
Nol. Among Lon Nol's first actions was closing the port of Sihanoukville
to supplies destined for Communist forces in the border bases and in South
Vietnam. He also demanded that Communist forces leave Cambodia and accepted
Saigon's offer to apply pressure against those located near the

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border. A few weeks earlier, American B-52 bombers had begun in secret
to bomb enemy bases in Cambodia. By late April, South Vietnamese military
units, accompanied by American advisers, had mounted large-scale ground
operations across the border.

On 1 May 1970, units of the 1st Cavalry Division, the 25th Infantry
Division, and the 11th Armored Cavalry followed. Cambodia became a new
battlefield of the Vietnam War. Cutting a broad swath through the enemy's
Cambodian bases, Army units discovered large, sprawling, well-stocked storage
sites, training camps, and hospitals, all recently occupied. What Americans
did not find were large enemy forces or COSVN headquarters. Only small
delaying forces offered sporadic resistance, while main force units retreated
to northeastern Cambodia. Meanwhile the expansion of the war produced violent
demonstrations in the United States. In response to the public outcry,
Nixon imposed a geographical and time limit on operations in Cambodia,
enabling the enemy to stay beyond reach. At the end of June, one day short
of the sixty days allotted to the operation, all advisers accompanying
the South Vietnamese and all U.S. Army units had left Cambodia.

Political and military events in Cambodia triggered changes in the war
as profound as those engendered by the Tet offensive. From a quiescent
"sideshow" of the war, Cambodia became an arena for the major belligerents.
Military activity increased in northern Cambodia and southern Laos as Hanoi
established new infiltration routes and bases to replace those lost during
the incursion. Hanoi made clear that it regarded all Indochina as a single
theater of operations. Cambodia itself was engulfed in a virulent civil
war.

As U.S. Army units withdrew, the South Vietnamese Army found itself
in a race against Communist forces to secure the Cambodian capital of Phnom
Penh. Americans provided Saigon's overextended forces air and logistical
support to enable them to stabilize the situation there. The time to strengthen
Vietnamization gained by the incursion now had to be weighed in the balance
against ARVN's new commitment in Cambodia. To the extent that South Vietnam's
forces bolstered Lon Nol's regime, they were unable to contribute to pacification
and rural security in their own country. Moreover, the South Vietnamese
performance in Cambodia was mixed. When working closely with American advisers,
the army acquitted itself well. But when forced to rely on its own resources,
the army revealed its inexperience and limitations in attempting to plan
and execute large operations.

Despite ARVN's equivocal performance, less than a year later the Americans
pressed the South Vietnamese to launch a second cross-border operation,
this time into Laos. Although U.S. air, artillery, and logistical support

684

would be provided, this time Army advisers would not accompany South
Vietnamese forces. The Americans' enthusiasm for the operation exceeded
that of their allies. Anticipating high casualties, South Vietnam's leaders
were reluctant to involve their army once more in extended operations outside
their country. But American intelligence had detected a North Vietnamese
build-up in the vicinity of Tchepone, a logistical center on the Ho Chi
Minh Trail approximately 25 miles west of the South Vietnamese border in
Laos. The Military Assistance Command regarded the build-up as a prelude
to an NVA spring offensive in the northern provinces. Like the Cambodian
incursion, the Laotian invasion was justified as benefiting Vietnamization,
but with the added bonuses of spoiling a prospective offensive and cutting
the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

In preparation for the operation, Army helicopters and artillery were
moved to the vicinity of the abandoned base at Khe Sanh. The 101st Airborne
Division conducted a feint toward the A Shau valley to conceal the true
objective. On 8 February 1971, spearheaded by tanks and with airmobile
units leapfrogging ahead to establish fire support bases in Laos, a South
Vietnamese mechanized column advanced down Highway 9 toward Tchepone. Operation
LAM SON 719 had begun.

The North Vietnamese were not deceived. South Vietnamese forces numbering
about 2s,000 became bogged down by heavy enemy resistance and bad weather.
The drive toward Tchepone stalled. Facing the South Vietnamese were elements
of five NVA divisions, as well as a tank regiment, an artillery regiment,
and at least nineteen antiaircraft battalions. After a delay of several
days, South Vietnamese forces air-assaulted into the heavily bombed town
of Tchepone. By that time, the North Vietnamese had counterattacked with
Soviet-built T54 and T55 tanks, heavy artillery, and infantry. They struck
the rear of the South Vietnamese forces strung out on Highway 9, blocking
their main avenue of withdrawal. Enemy forces also overwhelmed several
South Vietnamese fire support bases, depriving ARVN units of desperately
needed flank protection. The South Vietnamese also lacked antitank weapons
to counter the North Vietnamese armor that appeared on the Laotian jungle
trails. The result was near-disaster. Army helicopter pilots trying to
rescue South Vietnamese soldiers from their besieged hilltop fire bases
encountered intense antiaircraft fire. Panic ensued when some South Vietnamese
units ran out of ammunition. In some units all semblance of an orderly
withdrawal vanished as desperate South Vietnamese soldiers pushed the wounded
off evacuation helicopters or clung to helicopter skids to reach safety.
Eventually, ARVN forces punched their way out of Laos, but only after paying
a heavy price.

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That the South Vietnamese Army had reached its objective of Tchepone
was of little consequence. Its stay there was brief and the supply caches
it discovered disappointingly small. Saigon's forces had failed to sever
the Ho Chi Minh Trail; infiltration reportedly increased during LAM SON
719, as the North Vietnamese shifted traffic to roads and trails further
to the west in Laos. In addition to losing nearly 2,000 men, the South
Vietnamese lost large amounts of equipment during their disorderly withdrawal,
and the U.S. Army lost IO7 helicopters, the highest number in any one operation
of the war. Supporters pointed to heavy enemy casualties and argued that
equipment losses were reasonable, given the large number of helicopters
used to support LAM SON 719. The battle nevertheless raised disturbing
questions among Army officials about the vulnerability of helicopters in
mid- or highintensity conflict. What was the future of airmobility in any
war where the enemy possessed a significant antiaircraft capability?

LAM SON 719 proved to be a less ambiguous test of Vietnamization than
the Cambodian incursion. The South Vietnamese Army did not perform well
in Laos. Reflecting on the operation, General Ngo Quan Truong, the commander
of I Corps, noted ARVN's chronic weakness in planning for and

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co-ordinating combat support. He also noted that from the battalion
to the division level, the army had become dependent on U.S. advisers.
At the highest levels of command, he added, "the need for advisers was
more acutely felt in two specific areas: planning and leadership. The basic
weakness of ARVN units at regimental and sometimes division level in those
areas," he continued, "seriously affected the performance of subordinate
units." LAM SON 719 scored one success, forestalling
a Communist spring offensive in the northern provinces; in other respects,
it was a failure and an ill omen for the future.

Withdrawal: The Final Battles

As the Americans withdrew, South Vietnam's combat capability declined.
The United States furnished its allies the heavier M48 tank to match the
NVA's T54 tank and heavier artillery to counter North Vietnamese 130mm.
guns, though past experience suggested that additional arms and equipment
could not compensate for poor skills and mediocre leadership. In fact,
the weapons and equipment were insufficient to offset the reduction in
U.S. combat strength. In mid-1968, for example, an aggregate of fifty-six
allied combat battalions were present in South Vietnam's two northern provinces;
in 1972, after the departure of most American units, only thirty battalions
were in the same area. Artillery strength in the northern region declined
from approximately 400 guns to 169 in the same period, and ammunition supply
rates fell off as well. Similar reductions took place throughout South
Vietnam, causing decreases in mobility, firepower, intelligence support,
and air support. Five thousand American helicopters were replaced by about
500. American specialties—B-52 strikes, photo reconnaissance, and the use
of sensors and other means of target acquisition—were drastically curtailed.

Such losses were all the more serious because operations in Cambodia
and Laos had illustrated how deeply ingrained in the South Vietnamese Army
the American style of warfare had become. Nearly two decades of U.S. military
involvement were exacting an unexpected price. As one ARVN division commander
commented, "Trained as they were through combined action with US units,
the [South Vietnamese] unit commander was used to the employment of massive
firepower." That habit, he added, "was hard to relinquish."

By November 1971, when the 101st Airborne Division withdrew from the
South, Hanoi was planning its 1972 spring offensive. With ARVN's combat
capacity diminished and nearly all U.S. combat troops gone, North Vietnam
sensed an opportunity to demonstrate the failure of Vietnamization, hasten

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ARVN's collapse, and revive the stalled peace talks. In its broad outlines
and goals, the 1972 offensive resembled Bet 1968, except that the
North Vietnamese Army, instead of the Viet Cong, bore the major burden
of combat. The Nguyen-Hue offensive or Easter offensive began on 30 March
1972. Total U.S. military strength in South Vietnam was about 95,000, of
which only 6,000 were combat troops, and the task of countering the offensive
on the ground fell almost exclusively to the South Vietnamese.

Attacking on three fronts, the North Vietnamese Army poured across the
demilitarized zone and out of Laos to capture Quang Tri, South Vietnam's
northernmost province. In the Central Highlands, enemy units moved into
Kontum Province, forcing Saigon to relinquish several border posts before
government forces contained the offensive. On 2 April, Viet Cong and North
Vietnamese forces struck Loc Ninh, just south of the Cambodian border on
Highway 13, and advanced south to An Loc along one of the main invasion
routes toward Saigon. A two-month-long battle ensued, until enemy units
were driven from An Loc and forced to disperse to bases in Cambodia. By
late summer the Easter offensive had run its course; the South Vietnamese,
in a slow, cautious counteroffensive, recaptured Quang Tri City and most
of the lost province. But the margin of victory or defeat often was supplied
by the massive supporting firepower provided by U.S. air and naval forces.

The tactics of the war were changing. Communist forces now made extensive
use of armor and artillery. Among the new weapons in the enemy's arsenal
was the Soviet SA-7 hand-held antiaircraft missile, which posed a threat
to slow-flying tactical aircraft and helicopters. On the other hand, the
Army's attack helicopter, the Cobra, outfitted with TOW antitank missiles,
proved effective against NVA armor at stand-off range. In their antitank
role, Army attack helicopters were crucial to ARVN's success at An Loc,
suggesting a larger role for helicopters in the future as part of a combined
arms team in conventional combat.

Vietnamization continued to show mixed results. The benefits of the
South Vietnamese Army's newly acquired mobility and firepower were dissipated
as it became responsible for securing areas vacated by American forces.
Improvements of territorial and paramilitary troops were offset as they
became increasingly vulnerable to attack by superior North Vietnamese forces.
Insurgency was also reviving. Though their progress was less spectacular
than the blitzkrieg-like invasion of the South, North Vietnamese forces
entered the Delta in thousands between 1969 and 1973 to replace the Viet
Cong—one estimate suggested a tenfold increase in NVA strength, from 3,000
to 30,000, in this period. Here the fighting resembled that of the early

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1960's, as enemy forces attacked lightly defended outposts and hamlets
to regain control over the rural population in anticipation of a cease-fire.
The strength of the People's Self-Defense Force, Saigon's first line of
hamlet and village defense, after steady increases in 1969 and 1970, began
to decline after 1971, also suggesting a revival of the insurgency in the
countryside. Pursuing a strategy used successfully in the past, the North
Vietnamese forced ARVN troops to the borders, exposing the countryside
and leaving its protection in the hands of weaker forces.

Such unfavorable signs, however, did not disturb South Vietnam's leaders
as long as they could count on continued United States air and naval support.
Nixon's resumption of the bombing of North Vietnam during the Easter offensive
and, for the first time, his mining of North Vietnamese ports encouraged
this expectation, as did the intense American bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong
in late 1972. But such pressure was intended, at least in part, to force
North Vietnam to sign an armistice. If Thieu was encouraged by the display
of U.S. military muscle, the course of negotiations could only have been
a source of discouragement. Hanoi dropped an earlier demand for Thieu's
removal, but the United States gave up its insistence on Hanoi's withdrawal
of its troops from the South. In early 1973 the United States, North and
South Vietnam, and the Viet Cong signed an armistice that promised a cease-fire
and national reconciliation. In fact, fighting continued, but the Military
Assistance Command was dissolved, remaining U.S. forces withdrawn, and
American military action in South Vietnam terminated. Perhaps most important
of all, American advisers—still in many respects the backbone of ARVN's
command structure were withdrawn.

Between 1973 and 1975 South Vietnam's military security further declined
through a combination of old and new factors. Plagued by poor maintenance
and shortages of spare parts, much of the equipment provided Saigon's forces
under Vietnamization became inoperable. A rise in fuel prices stemming
from a worldwide oil crisis further restricted ARVN's use of vehicles and
aircraft. South Vietnamese forces in many areas of the country were on
the defensive, confined to protecting key towns and installations. Seeking
to preserve its diminishing assets, the South Vietnamese Army became garrison
bound and either reluctant or unable to react to a growing number of guerrilla
attacks that eroded rural security. Congressionally mandated reductions
in U.S. aid further reduced the delivery of repair parts, fuel, and ammunition.
American military activities in Cambodia and Laos, which had continued
after the cease-fire in South Vietnam went into effect, ended in 1973 when
Congress cut off funds. Complaining of this austerity, President Thieu
noted that he had to fight a "poor man's war." Vietnamization's legacy

689

was that South Vietnam had to do more with less.

In 1975 North Vietnam's leaders began planning for a new offensive,
still uncertain whether the United States would resume bombing or once
again intervene in the South. When their forces overran Phuoc Long Province,
north of Saigon, without any American military reaction, they decided to
proceed with a major offensive in the Central Highlands. Neither President
Nixon, weakened by the Watergate scandal and forced to resign, nor his
successor, Gerald Ford, was prepared to challenge Congress by resuming
U.S. military activity in Southeast Asia. The will of Congress seemed to
reflect the mood of an American public weary of the long and inconclusive
war.

What had started as a limited offensive in the highlands to draw off
forces from populated areas now became an all-out effort to conquer South
Vietnam. Thieu, desiring to husband his military assets, decided to retreat
rather than to reinforce the highlands. The result was panic among his
troops and a mass exodus toward the coast. As Hanoi's forces spilled out
of the highlands, they cut off South Vietnamese defenders in the northern
provinces from the rest of the country. Other NVA units now crossed the
demilitarized zone, quickly overrunning Hue and Da Nang, and signaling
the collapse of South Vietnamese resistance in the north. Hurriedly established
defense lines around Saigon could not hold back the inexorable enemy offensive
against the capital. As South Vietnamese leaders waited in vain for American
assistance, Saigon fell to the Communists on 29 April 1975.

The Post-Vietnam Army

Saigon's fall was a bitter end to the long American effort to sustain
South Vietnam. Ranging from advice and support to direct participation
in combat and involving nearly three million U.S. servicemen, the effort
failed to stop Communist leaders from reaching their goal of unifying a
divided nation. South Vietnam's military defeat tended to obscure the crucial
inability of this massive military enterprise to compensate for Saigon's
political shortcomings. Over a span of nearly two decades, a series of
regimes failed to mobilize fully and effectively their nation's political,
social, and economic resources to foster a popular base of support. North
Vietnamese main force units ended the war, but local insurgency among the
people of the South made that outcome possible and perhaps inevitable.

The U.S. Army paid a high price for its long involvement in South Vietnam.
American military deaths exceeded 58,000, and of these about two-thirds
were soldiers. The majority of the dead were low-ranking enlisted

690

men (E-2 and E-3), young men twenty-three years old or younger, of whom
approximately 13 percent were black. Most deaths were caused by small-arms
fire and gunshot, but a significant portion, almost 30 percent, stemmed
from mines, booby traps, and grenades. Artillery, rockets, and bombs accounted
for only a small portion of the total fatalities.

If not for the unprecedented medical care that the Army provided in
South Vietnam, the death toll would have been higher yet. Nearly 300,000
Americans were wounded, of whom half required hospitalization. The lives
of many seriously injured men, who would have become fatalities in earlier
wars, were saved by rapid helicopter evacuation direct to hospitals close
to the combat zone. Here, relatively secure from air and ground attack,
usually unencumbered by mass casualties, and with access to an uninterrupted
supply of whole blood, Army doctors and nurses availed themselves of the
latest medical technology to save thousands of lives. As one medical officer
pointed out, the Army was able to adopt a "civilian philosophy of casualty
triage" in the combat zone that directed the "major effort first to the
most seriously injured." But some who served in South Vietnam suffered
more insidious damage from the adverse psychological effects of combat
or the long-term effects of exposure to chemical agents. More than a decade
after the end of the war, 1,761 American soldiers remain listed as missing
in action.

The war-ravaged Vietnamese, north and south, incurred the greatest losses.
South Vietnamese military deaths exceeded 200,000. War-related civilian
deaths in the South approached a half-million, while the injured and maimed
numbered many more. Accurate estimates of enemy casualties run afoul of
the difficulty in distinguishing between civilians and combatants, imprecise
body counts, and the difficulty of verifying casualties in areas controlled
by the enemy. Nevertheless, nearly a million Viet Cong and North Vietnamese
soldiers are believed to have perished in combat through the spring of
1975

For the U.S. Army the scars of the war ran even deeper than the grim
statistics showed. Given its long association with South Vietnam's fortunes,
the Army could not escape being tarnished by its ally's fall. The loss
compounded already unsettling questions about the Army's role in Southeast
Asia, about the soundness of its advice to the South Vietnamese, about
its understanding of the nature of the war, about the appropriateness of
its strategy and tactics, and about the adequacy of the counsel provided
by Army leaders to national decision makers. Marked by ambiguous military
objectives, defensive strategy, lack of tactical initiative, ponderous
tactics, and untidy command arrangements, the struggle in Vietnam seemed
to violate most of the time-honored principles of war. Many officers sought
to erase

691

Vietnam from the Army's corporate memory, feeling uncomfortable with
the ignominy of failure or believing that the lessons and experience of
the war were of little use to the post-Vietnam Army. Although a generation
of officers, including many of the Army's future leaders, cut their combat
teeth in Vietnam, many regretted that the Army's reputation, integrity,
and professionalism had been tainted in the service of a flawed strategy
and a dubious ally.

Even before South Vietnam fell, Army strategists turned their attention
to what seemed to them to be the Army's more enduring and central mission—the
defense of western Europe. Ending a decade of neglect of its forces there,
the Army began to strengthen and modernize its NATO contingent. Army planners
doubted that in any future European war they would enjoy the luxury of
a gradual, sustained mobilization, or unchallenged control of air and sea
lines of communication, or access to support facilities close to the battlefield.
France's decision in 1966 to end its affiliation with NATO had already
forced the Army to re-evaluate its strategy and support arrangements. The
end of the draft in 1972 and the transition to an all-volunteer Army in
1973—a reflection of popular dissatisfaction with the Vietnam War—added
to the unlikelihood of another war similar to Vietnam and made it seem
more than ever an anomaly.

Instead, Army planners faced a possible future conflict that would begin
with little or no warning and confront allied forces-in-being with a numerically
superior foe. Combat in such a war was likely to be violent and sustained,
entailing deep thrusts by armored forces, intense artillery and counterbattery
fire, and a fluid battlefield with a high degree of mobility. Army doctrine
to fight this war, codified in 1976 in FM (Field Manual) 100-5, Operations,
barely acknowledged the decade of Army combat in Vietnam. The new doctrine
of "active defense" drew heavily on the experience of armored operations
in World War II and recent fighting in the Middle East between Arab and
Israeli forces. From a study of about 1,000 armored battles, Army planners
deduced that an outnumbered defender could force a superior enemy to concentrate
his forces and reveal his intentions, and thus bring to bear in the all-important
initial phase of the battle sufficient forces and firepower in the critical
area to defeat his main attack. The conversion of the 1st Cavalry Division,
the unit that exemplified combat operations in South Vietnam, from an airmobile
division to a new triple capabilities (TRICAP) division symbolized the
post-Vietnam Army's reorientation toward combat in Europe. Infused with
additional mechanized and artillery forces to give it greater flexibility
and firepower, the division's triple capabilities—armor, airmobility, and
air cavalry—better suited it to carry out the tactical concepts

692

of FM 100-5 than its previous configuration.

Yet the Army did not totally ignore its Vietnam experience. U.S. armor
and artillery forces had gained valuable experience there in co-ordinating
operations with airmobile forces. Although some in the military questioned
whether helicopters could operate in mid-intensity conflict, Army doctrine
rested heavily on concepts of airmobility that had evolved during Vietnam.
Helicopters were still expected to move forces from one sector of the battlefield
to another, to carry out reconnaissance and surveillance, to provide aerial
fire support, and to serve as antitank weapons systems. In many respects,
the role contemplated for helicopters in the post-Vietnam Army harkened
back to concepts of airmobility originally formulated for the atomic battlefield
of the early 1960's, but modified by combat in Vietnam. Like the Army of
the Vietnam era, the postwar Army continued a common hallmark of the American
military tradition by emphasizing technology and firepower over manpower.

The Army's new operational doctrine had its share of critics. Stressing
tactical operations of units below the division, the doctrine of FM IOO-5
neglected the role of larger Army echelons. Recognition of this deficiency
led to a revival of interest in the role of divisions, corps, and armies
in the gray area between grand strategy and tactics. But some strategists
warned that the Army seemed to be preparing for the war it was least likely
to fight. Like the strategists of the New Look in the 1950's, they viewed
an attack on Army forces in Europe as a mere trip wire that would ignite
a nuclear confrontation between the superpowers and thus make the land
battle irrelevant. With insurgencies, small wars, subversion, and terrorism
flourishing throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America, others believed
that that Army would sooner or later find itself once again engaged in
conflicts that closely resembled Vietnam.

Ten years after the loss of South Vietnam, the U.S. Army's major overseas
commitments remained anchored in NATO and South Korea. International realities
still compelled it to prepare for a variety of contingencies. In addition
to organizing divisions to fight in Europe, the Army revived its old interest
in light infantry divisions. By the mid-1980's two such divisions, the
10th Mountain Division and the 6th Infantry Division (Light), had been
activated, giving the Army once again a total of eighteen divisions. Lower
active-duty strength required many divisions to be fleshed out by Reserve
Components before they could be committed to combat. Nevertheless, the
Army viewed its new divisions as suitable for use in a rapid deployment
force to reinforce NATO or world trouble spots. Although their strength
was drastically reduced following the Vietnam War, Special Forces continued
to

693

be called upon to advise and train anti-Communist military forces in
Latin America and elsewhere and to participate in a variety of special
activities to counter terrorism. Operations like the abortive attempt to
rescue American hostages in Iran and the successful operation to prevent
a Communist takeover of the Caribbean island of Grenada attested to the
Army's continuing need for both rapidly deployable and special-purpose
forces. The realities of a complex world reinforced the pervasive influence
of flexible response on the U.S. national security policy. Many other missions
fell under the doctrinal umbrella of low-intensity conflict, a vague and
faddish term that became popular in the 1980's as counterinsurgency had
two decades earlier. The relevance of Vietnam to low-intensity conflict
remains an open question.

Nevertheless, by the 1980's the conduct and lessons of the war in Vietnam
had again become the subject of lively debate in the Army. Reassessments
of its role tend to center around the issue of whether the Army should
have devoted more effort to pacification or to defeating the conventional
military threat posed by North Vietnam. These issues stem from the ambiguities
of the war and the paradox of the Army's experience. Reliance on massive
firepower and technological superiority and the ability to marshal vast
logistical resources have been hallmarks of the American military tradition.
Tactics have often seemed to exist apart from larger issues, strategies,
and objectives. Yet in Vietnam the Army experienced tactical success and
strategic failure. The rediscovery of the Vietnam War suggests that its
most important legacy may be the lesson that unique historical, political,
cultural, and social factors always impinge on the military. Strategic
and tactical success rests not only on military progress but on correctly
analyzing the nature of the particular conflict, understanding the enemy's
strategy, and realistically assessing the strengths and weaknesses of allies.
A new humility and a new sophistication may form the best parts of the
complex heritage left the Army by the long, bitter war in Vietnam.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Some statistics of interest to all who served.
Jim Bledsoe 3-60
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2000

These are results of a new survey from THE VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL
FUND Wash DC. It plays with preconceptions we may have about who
Vietnam Veterans really are.

VIETNAM WARRIORS:A STATISTICAL PROFILE IN UNIFORM AND IN COUNTRY

* Vietnam Vets: 9.7% of their generation. 9,087,000 military
personnel served on active duty during the Vietnam era (Aug 5,
1964-May 7,1975). 8,744,000 GIs were on active duty during the
war (Aug 5, 1964-March 28, 1973).

* Amputation or crippling wounds to the lower extremities were
300% higher than in WWII and 70% higher than in Korea.

* Multiple amputations occurred at the rate of 18.4% compared to
5.7% in WWII.

* Missing in Action: 2,338.

POWs: 766 (114 died in captivity).

DRAFTEES VS. VOLUNTEERS

* 25% (648,500) of total forces in country were draftees. (66% of
US armed forces members were drafted during WWII).

* Draftees accounted for 30.4% (17,725) of combat deaths in
Vietnam.

* Reservists killed: 5,977.

* National Guard: 6,140 served, 101 died.

* Total draftees (1965-73)1,728,344.

* Actually served in Vietnam 38%.

* Marine Corps draft: 42,633.

* Last draftee: June 30, 1973.

RACE AND ETHNIC BACKGROUND

* 88.4% of those who actually served in Vietnam were Caucasian.
* 10.6% were black.
* 1% belonged to other races.

* 86.3% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasian (includes
Hispanics)
* 12.5% (7,241) were black
* 1.2% belonged to other races.
* 170,000 Hispanics served in Vietnam; 3,070 (5.2% of total) died
there.
* 70% of enlisted men killed were of Northwest European descent.
* 86.8% of the men who were killed as a result of hostile action
were Caucasian
* 12.1% (5,711) were black
* 1.1% belonged to other races.
* 14.6% (1,530) of non-combat deaths were among blacks.
* 34% of blacks that enlisted, volunteered for the combat arms.
* Overall, blacks suffered 12.5% of the deaths in Vietnam at a
time when the percentage of blacks of military age was 13.5% of
the total population.
RELIGION OF DEAD
* Protestant-64.4%
* Catholic-28.9%
* Other/none-6.7%.

SOCIETY-ECONOMIC STATUS

* 76% of the men sent to Vietnam were from lower middle and
working class backgrounds.
* 3/4ths had family incomes above the poverty level; 50% were from
middle income backgrounds. - Some 23% of Vietnam vets had
fathers with professional, managerial or technical occupations.
* 79% who served had a high school education or better. (63% of
Korean War and only 45% of WWII vets had completed high school
upon separation).

DEATHS BY REGION PER 100,000 OF POPULATION:

* South-31
* West-29
* Midwest-28.4
* Northeast-23.5.

WINNING AND LOSING
* 82% of vets who saw heavy combat strongly believe the war was
lost because of lack of political will.
* Nearly 75% of the public agrees it was a failure of political
will, not arms.

HONORABLE SERVICE

* 97% of Vietnam-era veterans were honorably discharged.
* 91% of actual Vietnam War veterans and 90% of those who saw
heavy combat are proud to have served their country.
* 66% of Vietnam vets say they would serve again if called upon.
* 87% of the public now holds Vietnam veterans in high esteem.